Juking the stats, and the state of rap, at the 2023 BET Hip-Hop Awards

The red carpet at the annual BET Hip-Hop Awards was a curious shade of green this year: money green. It was fitting for the occasion, because nothing comes close to distilling hip-hop's evolution over the last 50 years more than the color of cash.

I made it a point to attend the taping of this year's show, at the Cobb Energy Performing Arts Centre in Atlanta, because I wanted to see something you can't always discern by watching the show on TV. I wanted to see how hip-hop is living. "How you livin'?" is a question you don't hear resonating within the culture as much as it once did. We never posed the question to peers literally back in the golden era, either. But now, 50 years in, it seems we've reached a point where the question is less rhetorical and more to the point: Like, Yo, how are you still alive and kickin', my triple OG? Straight up.