The BET Hip Hop Awards were taped this Saturday, and Lil Wayne, of course, was the big winner. But perhaps the bigger winner was T.I., who actually made it to this year's ceremony. Last year, he was busy getting arrested during an illegal gun sale.

The awards air Thursday night.

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If R. Kelly and his handlers knew what was good for him, he would always steer clear of any and all interviews. Since many signs point to R. Kelly not knowing what's good for him — although it rarely matters in the end — he sat down with BET's Toure to have a little discussion about his alleged predilection for teenage girls. Kelly's take: When you fire people, they like to accuse you of being a pedophile. Even when they are related to you. Also, he has 19-year-old friends. Sue him! Transcript and video after the jump. Don't worry, it made my head hurt, too.

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The last couple years have been rough ones at BET — protests, plummeting viewership, a crumbling reputation — but one can't help but think that CEO Debra Lee considers the just-announced departure of Reginald Hudlin, president of entertainment for the network, to be step one in digging BET out of its hole. Lee said Hudlin's departure was a mutual decision. Apparently, the Boomerang and House Party director wants to get back to his Hollywood roots. She also said that it seemed like "a good time" for him to leave.

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Master P, ahem, P. Miller, has a new business venture to go along with his name change. The No Limit millionaire has announced plans to launch Better Black Television, a cable network designed to "bring people of color a choice when turning on their television." The family-friendly programming will include health, animation, sitcoms, reality TV, movies, politics, sports, and — just guessing — several poorly-produced, woodenly-acted shows and movies starring P. Miller and Romeo. Take a look at Miller's idea of quality family entertainment here.

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Baldwin Hills, the teen-focused reality show that is marketed as BET's answer to Laguna Beach and The Hills, premiered with a respectable (for BET) 1.5 million viewers on Tuesday. As 2007-2008 BET premieres go, the show comes in second place after Keyshia Cole: The Way It Is, meaning troubled R&B stars are more compelling to BET viewers than upper-middle-class kids and their overbearing parents. But how do Baldwin Hills' second season premiere numbers compare to its counterpart at MTV?

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A content analysis of BET's programming called "The Rap on Rap" that concluded that viewers of the channel's popular shows are exposed to violence, profanity or obscenity once every 38 seconds has reportedly inspired Proctor and Gamble, Pepsi and General Motors to pull advertising from Rap City and 106 & Park.

According to CNN, BET CEO Debra Lee initially dismissed the study, conducted by the virulently anti-BET group Enough is Enough. Others obviously paid much closer attention. [HHDX]

There are many things one can say about "our" network, BET, but a positive thing I can say is that I generally find the BET Awards far more entertaining than any award show MTV ever puts out. The show airs tonight, with performances by Lil Wayne, Usher, Alicia Keys, Al Green, Chris Brown, and others, but last night everyone's favorite network president Debra Lee hosted a pre-show dinner in LA. A glowing post-engagement Jill Scott was in attendance, along with Ashanti, Nelly, Soulja Boy, Eva Pigford, and Robert Townsend. Eclectic pre-party crowd.

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Originally, I was searching for an embeddable version of the Destiny's Child's "Bills, Bills, Bills" video and was planning to make some sort of joke about "automo'bills." Then I came across this old performance from Planet Groove, and it has to be the weakest, most lackluster performance I've ever seen from Destiny's Child, but especially from Beyonce. Sasha wasn't born yet.

• Since he can't make a statement with the title, Nas decided to make a statement with his album's cover art. [NB]

• Clearly, black celebrities and "celebrities" are quite attracted to two Viacom channels. BET is not one of them. [EUR]

• Yesterday, a forensic video analyst testified during R. Kelly's pornography trial that "it would take someone 44 years — working nonstop, 24/7, 365 days a year — to be able to fake the sex tape" at the center of the trial. He also found the mole on the back of the man in the video that matches Kelly's, even though Kelly's main defense is that the mole isn't present in the video. [Bossip]

• Thirteen-year-old Nyjah Huston is killin' the skateboarding game. [BV]

• Many colleges are dropping the SAT and ACT as requirements for admission. [CNN]

When most networks unveil their fall programming at their upfronts, I, being a television junkie, am passively interested. When BET does it, I'm filled with a sense of dread. What now?

I'll say this — it's not as bad as last year's. Considering last year's lineup included Hot Ghetto Mess-turned-We Got To Do Better and Hell Date, a Punk'd-type dating show featuring little people wearing dimestore devil costumes, it would be hard for them to come up with ideas that are as bad as they were last year. As it is, many of the shows sound like the creative team just tried to translate programs on other networks into "black versions," like the new, self-explanatory show Judge Karen, and the MC Lyte-hosted dating show The Boot, which sounds a lot like a combination of Elimidate and MTV's Next (a bad combination, in case you haven't seen either of them).

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Wherein you, the readers, talk amongst yourselves.
In a new study from the Parents Television Council and the very-anti-Viacom group, Enough is Enough, researchers find that BET and MTV show adult content — sex, violence, obscenity or profanity — every 38 seconds and go so far as to call the networks "predatory." Do you agree with this assessment? Do you watch any programs on MTV or BET? Which ones? Do you/will you let your children watch?

• Whatever, it's not like this is a big surprise or anything. Thank you, America. [Racialicious]

• The second of the Boondocks lost episodes, aka the ones BET didn't want you to see, is here. [WSHH]

• Shar Jackson needs to stop. Then again, maybe she feels like K-Fed has been punished enough. [NYDN]

• R.I.P. Ivan Dixon. [NPR]

In the UK today, Basil Brush, a children's television program about a fox, was exonerated of charges of racism, reports the BBC. After receiving a phone call from a private citizen who complained of a scene depicting a "Gypsy woman," police investigated the case, concluded it had no merit and made no arrests. In related news, IN ENGLAND YOU CAN CALL THE COPS IF YOU WITNESS RACISM ON TV AND THEY MIGHT GO AND ARREST SOMEONE!!!!!! Why didn't we know about this? If the US shared the UK's zeal for targeting bigots on the small screen, how many shakedowns would BET face per month? MTV? Fox News?

Diddy, seen here with Lauren London and his ubiquitous "employee" Cassie at BET's Rip the Runway show last night, visited David Letterman recently and explained his plan to rule the entertainment world. He co-stars in the made-for-TV version of Lorraine Hansberry's A Raisin in the Sun, which airs Monday at 8pm on ABC. Here, he explains to Letterman the sorts of movie roles he wants.

"Yeah, leading man kind of stuff; you know, jumping off of buildings," Combs says in an appearance scheduled to air Friday on CBS' "Late Show With David Letterman."

Besides action-packed adventure, the rapper-producer's ideal film roles would also include "making love to beautiful women" and "very emotional, heart-wrenching scenes."

Why do I feel like his agent tries to include a "making love to beautiful women" stipulation in all of his contracts?

After the jump, check out more pics of poorly-dressed semi-celebs at the BET fashion event.

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