The BET Awards ceremony, which rewards minority artists, will have been marked by numerous tributes to George Floyd. That of rapper DaBaby was particularly applauded. During this entirely virtual evening due to the risks linked to the coronavirus, the American artist broadcast a clip in which he reproduces, or rather re-stages, the death of George Floyd, to the music of his hit Rockstar .
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The video, which lasts about four minutes, opens on the rapper lying on the ground, the nape blocked by the knee of a policeman. A clear reference to the arrest of George Floyd, a black American in his forties who died in Minneapolis after having been kept in this position for a long time by agent Derek Chauvin.
The following shots will show DaBaby and his sidekick rapper Roddy Ricch standing on a burning car, surrounded by masked protesters with "Black Lives Matter" and "I am George Floyd" signs .
The clip ends with Zianna Oliphant's viral speech in 2016. The 9-year-old girl spoke out about police violence during a city council meeting in Charlotte, North Carolina. “We are black and we should not be feeling these kinds of emotions. We shouldn't protest because you are treating us badly. It is a shame that our fathers and mothers are killed, and that we can no longer see them. It is a shame to have to go to their graves, to bury them, ” she said.
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The anti-racist protests that emerged in the United States after the death of George Floyd were at the heart of the BET Awards evening. Beyoncé took advantage of the ceremony, which rewarded her with a humanitarian prize, to call on blacks to vote in the next presidential election. " We have to vote as if our lives depended on it, because it is ," she said.
Assa Traoré, who denounces police violence and racism since the death of her brother Adama, " killed ", according to her, by the French police, received the BET Global Good award for her commitment.
