Fat Joe is calling out Viacom and BET for putting two major award shows on hold.
On the Wednesday (Aug. 6) episode of his Joe and Jada podcast, the “Lean Back” rapper responded to BET CEO Scott Mills’ announcement to Billboard that both the BET Hip-Hop Awards and the Soul Train Music Awards are on an indefinite pause. Mills added that the network is “actively thinking” about where those shows might fit in today’s shifting media landscape.
But Fat Joe isn’t buying it.
“This is a form of gentrification, what’s going on,” he told Jadakiss during the episode.
He reflected on BET’s roots, reminding listeners that the network was originally built for the Black community and urban culture, before being sold to Viacom and Paramount by its co-founder Bob Johnson. For Fat Joe, this move feels like part of a bigger erasure.
“Little by little, over the years, they’ve been quietly letting people go behind the scenes at BET — especially anyone who had something to say,” Fat Joe told Jadakiss. “I know because I’ve been involved with the BET Hip-Hop Awards for three years. The budget kept getting slashed and slashed — not mine personally, but the show’s overall.”
He pointed out that while the BET Hip-Hop Awards were struggling, last year’s VMAs seemed to have no shortage of funds, referencing Katy Perry’s extravagant Video Vanguard performance.
“They still got all the tricks. They still got the budgets. They got the sh*t,” Joe said. “This was gentrification. They kept underfunding BET — to the point where you couldn’t be creative anymore. That’s why people were watching and calling it the ratchet awards. They didn’t have the money.”
Joe gave BET props for helping him become “the Steve Harvey of hip-hop,” but stressed that you can’t run these types of productions “with no money, no promotions, no staff.”
“You might as well have called it the Independent Awards,” he added. “No Soul Train, no BET Awards — but guess what? We got the VMAs.”
He also warned that the BET Awards might be next to go.
“That’s seconds away. The writing’s on the wall,” he said. “If you see everything else crumbling, it’s a domino effect. One little fumble from Kevin Hart — one joke too many — that’s done too.”
Joe closed by hinting at what he believes is a larger agenda: “Sometimes the goal is to buy your project just to silence you. A big company might say, ‘Hey, we want to buy Rewind It 10,’ cut the check, then shut it down. Just keep it moving.”
Back in June, it was reported that BET’s parent company, Paramount Global, had been hit with layoffs, prompting the network to cut staff. CEO Scott Mills later shared that BET was rolling out a “streamlined organizational structure” to maintain the core of its mission and leadership in the market.
