Wow.
Tell us what you really thought of Madonna’s tribute to Prince, BET!
On Sunday night at the 2016 Billboard Music Awards, Madonna took to the stage in order to honor the legendary artist, who died at the age of 57 back on April 21.
She opened her number with a rendition of “Nothing Compares 2 U” and was then joined by Stevie Wonder for a version of “Purple Rain.”
Overall, the performance received mixed reviews online. Check it out for yourself before we move on:
While we expect the Twitterverse to get its proverbial panties in a bunch over pretty much anything, BET came out and surprised Internet users last night by actually throwing its own shade at Madonna.
Big time.
With the BET Awards set for June 16, the network released a short promo on Twitter, teasing its own Prince tribute and stoking the fire of disapproval with by stating:
“Yeah, we saw that. Don’t worry. We Got You.”
Ouch. Pretty harsh, no?
Questlove, who introduced Madonna to the stage for her tribute performance, certainly thinks so.
He took to Twitter immediately to defend the Material Girl.
“Because of P’s well known love for the *poof* vanishing act. A lot of us are left feeling incomplete in the act of saying goodbye,” he wrote, adding:
“For starters it’s hard to accept him no longer being here. & in the upcoming award season for ’17 there will be a gang of tributes. Naturally there will be folded arms & shade thrown because the Purple Standard is hard boots to fill & a lot of us don’t wanna come 2 grips w the fact that Prince – (an on the surface) face of health & invincible agelessness – succomb [sic] to something so… friggin basic.”
Questlove concluded as follows:
“So I know there is gonna be A LOT of ‘feel a certain ways’ about who you want to see do his music justice – but you gotta put that aside y’all.
“Every Prince rendition will not be a life changing orgasmic xperience. Just to SING his work is brave enough. Again feeling are on high, and EVERYBODY wants and deserves a chance to say goodbye in their own way.
“But remember: there will be AMAs, SoulTrain, NAACP, mtv, GRAMMYS, and a gazillion other tributes.
“But the point is let’s not get ugly with playing the ‘Prince would and wouldn’t approve’ game.”
What did you think of Madonna’s tribute?
We’ve included it below, along with other memorable performance from the Billboard Music Awards:
