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Freed Mill takes on police brutality at BET Awards

June 25, 2018
US singer-songwriter Janelle Monae performs onstage during the BET Awards at Microsoft Theatre in Los Angeles, California, on June 24, 2018. / AFP / Valerie MACON
US singer-songwriter Janelle Monae performs onstage during the BET Awards at Microsoft Theatre in Los Angeles, California, on June 24, 2018. / AFP / Valerie MACON



LOS ANGELES - Rapper Meek Mill, free after a controversial jail sentence, returned to the stage Monday with a vigorous attack on police brutality as he premiered a song at the BET Awards.

The awards of Black Entertainment Television, broadcast live from Los Angeles, recognize the best of African American music and film and the blockbuster "Black Panther" won Best Movie.

Mill was one of the night's most memorable performers as he debuted his song "Stay Woke." The 31-year-old rapper in April won his freedom five months after a judge jailed him over violations of probation stemming from a 2008 arrest, a decision that triggered protests charging that it was overly harsh and racially biased.

Nicki Minaj put on the most physically grueling performance of the night as she sported a skin-tight latex red dress, emerging with a dancing squad from a smoke-filled Chinese archway for her martial arts-themed song "Chun-Li."

While many of the music awards were presented off camera, hard-living trap trio Migos won Best Group and the R&B singer and emerging feminist icon SZA took Best New Artist.

The BET Awards presented a special "humanitarian heroes" award to six people including Mamoudou Gassama, the Malian migrant in Paris who saved a child hanging off a balcony by scaling an apartment block with his bare hands.

Other award recipients included Naomi Wilder, the 11-year-old who gained wide attention with her poised speech before the March for Our Lives in Washington urging more attention to violence against women of color, and Anthony Borges, the high school student in Parkland, Florida who took five bullets as he rescued 20 classmates during the February massacre.

"Black Panther," the superhero movie about a fictional African king that has become the third highest-grossing film ever in North America, unsurprisingly took the top prize for cinema. - AFP


June 25, 2018
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