The 2007 Ozone Awards/TJs DJs Conference represented the good, the bad and the gotdamn ugly in not only the south but the entire music industry. Although this was supposed to be another “What You Didn’t See At The…” piece like I’ve done for both the BET and BET Hip Hop Awards, the Ozone Awards/TJs DJs Conference had so much more going on that you won’t see on the show itself or even hear about in the media. The best thing to do for all of you that never will get a chance to attend one of these is deliver the best and the worst of this year’s festival. We’ll start with the good…
The Good
Gotdammit, I gotta give it up to Julia Beverly and TJ for working their asses off to make this materialize. The south NEEDS this. With the south catching so much flak for its contributions to the industry, TJ and Julia decided to join forces for an informative conference as well as an award show to honor the pride of those under the Mason Dixon line. If nobody else is going to pay attention to the movement bubbling down under, these two will. To not only bring together some of the South’s finest (everyone from Mannie Fresh, Polow The Don, Bryan Michael Cox, Lil Scrappy, Killer Mike and Trey Songz down to Wendy Day, DJ Drama and Fabo of D4L, but to look organized is a feat in itself.
The panels proved to be relatively informative for those who are thinking about getting into the game. Everything from Marketing, Artist Development and Journalism was covered and provided aspiring artists a great insight on entering a difficult industry. Combine that with the fact that it was relatively relaxed at the Regency Hyatt, and you have the good.
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The Bad
For all the work that Julia Beverly put into this award show it was *clears throat* GHETTO AS FUCK. When the gotdamn host of the event (Lil Duvalle) says those exact words in the mic (really he did), red flags should go up everywhere. Julia was obviously overwhelmed and while she did her best to keep many of these unruly fucks in line, the award show turned into organized chaos. I’m not sure exactly what to attribute it to – bad event planning or bad people.
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And the women…lord have mercy…the women. As a man myself, I could easily be happy with the amount of T&A strolling about the hotel premises. Young ladies with bodies in unimaginable proportions jiggled throughout the building and men from coast to coast would have given a quart of blood if they could have witnessed what I observed. But there comes a point where it gets overdone and the civil rights activist in me has to say “Man…what the FUCK are yall doin!?!?”
For all the women who don’t want their asses grabbed or arms tugged, wearing see thru fishnets with thongs and pasties doesn’t really help your cause. It doesn’t excuse the actions of the Neanderthals chasing skirts but it sure does raise the possibility of a booty getting poked which can lead to some crazy activity. And the concept of dressing to impress the rappers in attendance is beyond groupie…its demeaning to women across the globe. Reinforcing the stereotype of being perceived “hoes” doesn’t counteract what many people think about you. Considering that there were two young ladies who represented Crunk Juice who wore nothing but body paint and a thong (by nothing I mean nothing…no pasties or anything. Nipples were abound), Ozone Awards/TJs DJs Conference looked more like a concentrated Freaknik rehash than an educational forum and award show.
Did I fail to mention the fact that the awards were *clears throat* GHETTO AS FUCK? Okay if I didn’t, I’ll do so now…
While the performers had sound issues to deal with and looked more like a high school talent show than an award show, that wasn’t the biggest problem prevalent. An award show organizer’s worst nightmare would probably be winners spilling liquor on their way to the stage to drunkenly accept their award with a curse word laden speech. OH SNAP! The worst nightmare was realized at the Ozone Awards. Julia Beverly and the rest of the Ozone crew did everything in their power but nothing could save them from the ignorance that would ensue. Not to mention it took 4 and ½ hrs to shoot a 2hr award show and voila! You now have the bad.
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The Ugly
Yeah, the scene down in the lobby was something else (if you happened to miss the news piece about police manhandling woman CLICK HERE) . Unruly black folks acting a gotdamn fool (which I’m sure is what many thought was inevitable) ultimately led to the police head locking the young lady like she was in the WWE. After 3 days of peace and tranquility amongst those individuals that the average apple pie eating Amercian would cross the street on if shared, one small event probably caused by some locals led to a chaotic scene. Apparently, a small fight broke out that grew like a tumbling snowball and turned from mano y mano to many men against men.
People ran, pushed, shoved and fought. Some chains got snatched, rappers joined locals and the 40 yard dash to cover from assumed gunshots, chickens with next to nothing on slipped and fell but tried to remain looking cute was a scene right of the ghetto handbook. A few bad apples shouldn’t spoil the bunch but tell that to those who said “I Told You So.”
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One scene in particular was one of the more shocking situations I’ve been a part of in my short lifespan of 28 years…
After police kicked everyone out the Hyatt hotel lobby, I decided that I needed to be off the streets and in my room and took a back way up the stairs and up to the 4th floor of which I would take the elevator to the 14th floor (your boy was not walking all them damn steps). On the 4th floor a few rappers hung around, out of breath, waiting for the same elevator. Being as though some of us were used to running from bullets in our hometown, we all gathered a chuckle from what transpired. As we chatted and waited for the elevator to whisk us away to the serenity of our rooms, said elevator arrived on the 4th floor but was going down. “Eff it” we thought but the elevator door opened and about five gentlemen (and I use “gentle” loosely) stood and told one of the rappers that “You don’t wanna go down this elevator *firearms revealed* there’s going to be a shootout.”
1…
2…
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3…
Let me repeat that again so it will sink in – “You don’t wanna go down this elevator *firearms revealed* there’s going to be a shootout.”
*firearms revealed*(!)
“There’s going to be a shootout” (!!!???!!!)
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Yeah…word? So as we thanked the gun toting individuals for their advice, we each took that long “I can’t believe what I just saw” stare and without another word, bolted to the nearest flight of steps.
Was there a shootout? Hell if I know. I wasn’t about to stick around to find out. I’ll assume not, but the thought of what could have went down epitomizes the “ugly” that could easily have drowned an otherwise successful weekend in a pool of blood. And what better black eye for Hip Hop (I think we have run out of eyes to blacken and have moved on to limbs being chopped off) than a firefight after a down south award show.
So there’s the good, the bad, and the fuckin ugly. Once again, I gotta give props to Ms. Beverly for putting this all together. I know it was hard work and shit was going to happen. Unfortunately, you can’t control the individuals who participated in the award show. All you can do is build a house for them to come to (and eventually dirty your rug and put a few bullet holes in your windows). But hope is not lost as I expect Julia to rebound and give it another whirl next year.
