"The Hottest Ticket On Television" may have been the 2008 BET Awards, but what you didn’t see may be hotter than what you did. Once again, the bad guys of HipHopDX would be in the building to bring to you some commentary pertaining to what went down behind the scenes.

From a Hip Hop perspective, it wasn't the most exciting show in the world. So to spruce things up, there will be some scenes from Friday sprinkled throughout this year’s coverage because the plethora of one liners in that classic film (that features Nia Long…more on her later) will assist in providing the some dialog for this year’s edition of “What You Didn’t See…”

You’ll read about the good the bad and the outright ridiculous. But let’s start with the evening before the awards.

The Game [click to read] had his listening party for his upcoming L.A.X. album. Unfortunately, because it was wedged in some corner of Santa Monica, we showed up a bit late and missed out on hearing the album. Big burly security guards didn’t give a shit about a guest list and gave us the cold shoulder by saying the event was ending in 10 minutes for the next 20 minutes. Yeah, we were salty.

So what did we do? Went to Jermaine Dupri’s party. Jermaine Dupri [click to read] invited a who’s who in the industry to his official launch party for his newest venture, TAG Records. An open bar accompanied by a bevy of old school classics spun by DJ Cassidy. Guests included Nas and Kelis (who avoided the red carpet), Jermaine Dupri, Slim Thug, Shaun Merriman of the San Diego Chargers, David Banner [click to read], Ronnie Devoe, Ralph Tresvant and Ricky Bell from Bell Biv Devoe and plenty of others.

But the real theme this year is that 35+ is the new 18. I’m sorry folks but that whole “the blacker the berry, the sweeter the juice” motto has to be replaced with “the older the berry the sweeter the juice.” You need one good reason to support this theme? I’ll give you three. Sanaa Lathan, Taraji Henson and Nia Long

And on three, all together now…

And who the hell is this cutie you ask?

Her name is Katerina Graham. Who is she? Well she was a Fanta girl. Yeah…those Fanta soda singing girls. Either way…

Swag bags were handed out filled with TAG products. While the party was great and stocked with a nice open bar, one has to wonder how far this whole TAG label is going to go. Deodorant and Hip Hop? I don’t know…

During the pre-award 106 & Park show that featured the red carpet arrivals, you could see people like Sean Kingston, Big Boi and T-Pain [click to read] milling about. T-Pain was rolling with a bearded lady (at that point we weren’t too sure what the deal was with that) and Soulja Boy [click to read] was getting prepared for the evening. Unfortunately, Soulja Boy wasn’t fielding questions about the Ice-T beef [click to read]. Yung Joc [click to read] kicked off the pre-award festivities with Hotstylez for a performance on “Looking Boy” which proves that real talent can’t get you a deal but a Youtube “joke” can. Big Boi also rocked with Raekwon [click to read] for “Skew In On The Bar B” and “Royal Flush” while more celebs arrived on the carpet. And there would be more proof that older women are crushing their younger counterparts.

It seems that Team New Booty which featured a starting five of Cassie (22), Angel Lola Luv (21), Ciara (22), Rhianna (20) and Lauren London (23) got stomped out by Team Classic and its own lineup of LisaRaye (40), Nia Long (37), Sanaa Lathan (36), Taraji Henson (35) and Claudia Jordan (35).

Hell, even MC Lyte is giving these young gals trouble these days.

Continued on page 2 »