Due to COVID-19 pandemic leaving the world in quarantine over recent times, many concerts, tours, and huge events were cancelled. Though these hard and strange times may have put a halt on things, BET refused to let us go without the BET Awards 2020. Of course we couldn’t witness the live version we’re all used to seeing each year, but this only lead us to witnessing the next best thing — a virtual show! While all of the performances this year were superb, one of the best highlights was provided courtesy of DaBaby with his live rendition of the Black Lives Matter “Rockstar” remix with Roddy Ricch.
BET Awards 2020 host Amanda Seales introduced DaBaby with her reenactment of the classic BET hip hop show “Rap City In Tha Basement.” The start of the performance showed the Charlotte rapper pinned down to the pavement, handcuffed, while a police officer has a knee on his neck. Showing exactly how George Floyd lost his life, this was an immediate attention getter.
The performance then transitioned to DaBaby rapping over the melodic instrumental as he’s surrounded by Black men and women wearing shirts reading “I AM GEORGE FLOYD,” “BLACK LIVES MATTER,” “I AM BREONNA TAYLOR” and other stand-out messages. Standing in solidarity with their fists raised high, the memo was precisely conveyed with the various signs reading “DEFUND THE POLICE,” “I CAN’T BREATHE” and more.
With fire surrounding the platform and police cars set ablaze, DaBaby couldn’t have picked a better time to perform this. Roddy Ricch’s contribution made the record and performance even better as he came with his unique style and flow. The numerous scenes of the vandalism of police cars spoke volumes on behalf of the people.
The quarantine ruined many things, but it’s safe to assume we can all agree on one thing: It produced some great results in the music industry. Watch DaBaby’s virtual BET Awards 2020 set below.