Antoine Dodson may almost be out of his 15 minutes of fame but that didn't stop him from performing at the BET Hip Hop Awards. We've got the video plus an interview with him and the complete winners list from last night's show when you read on...
Antoine did an interview with The Root and discussed everything from his BET Awards performance to homophobia and Bishop Eddie Long:
The Root: Did BET reach out to you to do the performance, or did you reach out to them?
Antoine Dodson: I am not desperate at all. I don't call people and say, 'Hey, I want to be on your show.' They reached out to me and said, 'You are the hot topic right now, so we want you to be on the show.' I thought I was just presenting. I did not know what I was doing until I got there. So I was like, 'Oh, I’m performing? OK.' That was my first performance ever.
The Root: Do you think your performance obscures the serious issue of the alleged sex-crime attempt?
Antoine Dodson: I hate that people might feel that way, but all I can say is, 'What if you were in my shoes?' So what people are saying is crazy. I'm performing the song because it's such a serious situation. Not only am I performing the song, but I feel that if I keep performing it, it will keep the situation fresh. It won't die down. People really need to stop and think before they make these crazy comments and these dumb opinions. I'm not trying to make this into a joke. If y'all can make the video viral, then you can make the message viral. You think a bunch of rumors and opinions are going to make me hide in the closet? If anything, I'm going to be on the camera even more.
The Root: African Americans have a particular, sensitive history with minstrel shows, which made a mockery of the conditions of black folk. Do you think people will connect your performance with minstrelsy?
Antoine Dodson: Of course they will connect it with that. The media is just going try to bring you down, but the whole thing about it is, I'm going to try my best not to be another Britney Spears and not let it take me down. I won't go through it like she did, but she came out of it. People have jobs where they just dig up stuff, so you better count on it.
The Root: This is in no way related to you, but I'm just curious about how you feel about the Bishop Eddie Long case?
Antoine Dodson: I get that a lot anyway. My reaction is, weren't they 16 or 17? At that age you are a year or two away from being legal. How do you not know that someone is taking advantage of you? Doesn't school teach you that? Don't they teach you about maturity? They teach you how to drive a car -- why not teach you about being taken advantage of?
I'm sorry if people may hate me, but I feel like something is not adding up. From the look of it, I saw some of the boys' interviews, and one of them is well-spoken and intelligent. Maybe they were scared to speak out all of these years. I don't know, but I smell money.
The Root: How do you feel about how homophobia and sexual crimes are handled in black communities?
Antoine Dodson: They feel like -- especially bourgie black people -- they don't want to air it on the news because they feel it reflects poorly on the black community. So in order to make them look bourgie, even though they're in the hood, they just don’t speak about it. But a person like me, I'm going to air you out. I’m going to call every media outlet I can and get it in. And I expect somebody to air me out, especially if I'm doing something I ain't got no business doing.
Now run and tell dat!
Here's the video from last night's show:
Oh, this qualifies as hip-hop? Hmm.
But this indeed does:
The Cypher that aired last night with Ice Cube and his sons and Rev Run and his sons. Team Diggy!
Here's a link to the complete list of winner's from last night.
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