THE 2008 BET AWARDS LIVE FROM LOS ANGELES.

We can never get tired of Rihanna's back!

Mel B looked radiant!

Soulja Boy came with a lot of Superman bling

Alicia Keys was ready to play some Keys

Cinderella Rihanna

Li'l Mama and her L'il mama

J-Hud

Usher fooling around in the pressroom

Toccara

The 2008 BET awards started with a hot same old same old Usher performance. You know he is flawless. Prior to that, Flo-Rida, Alicia Keys and Soulja Boy all won pre award show awards outside. The red carpet was red with Rihanna's Cinderella yellow dress and L'il Mama with her L'il mama girl. Neyo sang his "Closer " song and even serenaded Rihanna in her lovely yellow dress sitting in the first row with Chris Brown who won the Best Male
R&B Artist.

L'il Kim sang with Keyshia Cole

Keyshia Cole blew off the roof with her hits first by wearing a country girl gown which changed into a white shorts set after being pulled off by a dancer, then L'il Kim joined her on stage and finished that "I don't want your man" song.

Alicia Keys who snagged the Best R&B female award again blew up the roof too only to surprise us by bringing out her favourite girl groups SWV, En Vogue and TLC one by one to sing with her. One little boo-boo, while she was hailing the "chasing waterfalls" song that TLC did, she cheered "let's sing it for the people." I cheered "let's sing it for Lisa." The late Lisa "Left Eye"Lopes of TLC of course who passed away years ago.

Ne-Yo did his thing as always. Dancing and singing sophisticated. Kanye West won the Best Male hip-hop artist and L'il Weezy was on the stage to help him accept it massaging him on the back while Kanye congratulated Weezy's one million platinum sales. My O my, BET CEO Debra Lee did one hell of a job this year. When T-Pain came on stage, his was one hell of a theatric show with dancers on stilts and clown plus Ludacris came out as well as Rick Ross, DJ Khaled and Flo-Rida. What a crazy collab!

The height of the evening was when that UGK video finally won the Best Video of the Year. Players Anthem lost last year to Kanye West who gave them the award anyway. Pimp C's wife came on stage with Big Boi and Bun B to accept the award.

Kanye West also made the award for Best collaboration with T-Pain who was nominated 5 times with other artists. T-Pain walked onto the stage in slow motion. It was so funny!

One sour part of the evening was the Best New Artist Dream who was a no show. Everyone was expecting this to be between Estelle and Soulja Boy. LL Cool J and Ashanti had to accept that one for Dream.

Look closer and it's really Ciara! We found that out on 50 Cent's website!

Chris Brown did some crazy choreographed moves with a female dancer which Rihanna was seen visibly happy about and was clapping. The whole thing ended with L'il Wayne singing Lollipop SO BAD! But that voice sells!!! Al Green got the lifetime achievement awards while Quincy Jones took the Humanitarian award. Rihanna performed her "Take a bow " song which was dull as it had no rythm. She sounded much better when she performed it here in Toronto where she performed it live from the first time.

A final thanks to Rapper MC Lyte with that BOLD voice in the control room. Remember, if you missed it, it will be repeated like crazy on other nights and the weekends.