The Brotha Please Awards, 2006

Welcome and thank you for tuning in to the first annual Brotha Please Awards also known as the "boo, negro boo awards." I'm your host for this evening, Gwyneth Bolton, and tonight we'll be honoring three brothas who need to sit their behinds down and shut up. Now, I know that we shouldn't reward bad behavior. But we should have a way to call attention to these brothas in a way that serves to curb that kind of behavior in the future.

So without further ado, the first award of the evening goes to a young man who has been writing for a while. He built his career off of the hard earned dollars of loyal female readers and a few years back had the nerve to stand in front of an audience of women book club members and complain about having majority female readers. You see he wants men to read his books. And he even went as far as to chastise the women for not doing more to make sure their husbands and boyfriends read so that he can have men read his masculine books. Then he wrote and essay in a major black women's magazine (Essence 2/06—I told y'all they have fallen off…) going on and on about how he is such a successful alpha male with so many women adoring him that when his wife is too tired for sex or has a headache it makes it hard for him to keep wanting to be faithful. Brotha Please! Omar Tyree gets the Most Sexist Brotha of the Year Award.

The second award goes to a rapper who began his rap career talking about how many times he'd been shot and also started a war with another popular rapper at the time. Now, there is nothing wrong with attacking the guy on top in order to take his place. Law of the jungle, kill or be kill, whatever… But this rapper went a little crazy with it and couldn’t seem to stop starting trouble with other rappers and just stirring up all kinds of mess. Every new album he releases he has a new beef with yet another rapper. One would think that he wanted to get shot again… But now the brotha has really lost his ever-loving mind. He is going to war with Oprah Winfrey! He's complaining to everyone who will listen (White Media…) that Oprah doesn't like black men and she is no longer black identified, etc… whatever… And he is doing this because he feels that Oprah doesn't have enough rap artists on her show. Hmmm… let me see… last time I checked it was the Oprah Winfrey Show. She can have whoever or whatever she wants on her show. When you get a show then you can have what you want on your show. See how that works? You still don't get it do you? Are you slow? No, you just like starting shit, huh? Brotha Please! 50 Cent, please step up and take your two awards: The Whiniest Brotha of the Year Award and the special So, You Wanna Be Starting Somethin' Certificate.

The third award of the evening goes to my friend and yours… we've talked about him on this blog before. He is also an… entertainer… (The hip-hop purist in me won't allow me to call him a rapper…) He just released an album and he has been seen everywhere promoting it. Luckily he and his long-term girlfriend are expecting twins just in time to help build the hype around his new album. And luckily his momma is a long time friend of Essence Magazine's former editor and iconic presence Susan L. Taylor… (How else can one explain the many covers devoted to this fool over the years, especially the most recent one?) Anyway, there are so many reasons why he should get the Brotha Please Award. But this year he gets it for using his girlfriend's pregnancy to sell records. That's just tacky, tacky, tacky. Pimping your children before they even get here is so not cool. All I can say is Brotha Please! Puffy or Diddy or whatever you are calling yourself these days, come on up and get your Tackiest Brotha of the Year Award.

Now I realize that you might take issue with this year's awardees. You might think we here at Gwyneth's Blog have been too harsh. Or you might think that there are others far more deserving of this award. So, please feel free to voice your opinion and share your thoughts. Also feel free to nominate and even give out your own awards. And before you say I'm picking on the brothas, let the record show that I fully intend to have a Sista Please Award Show soon. Because some of y'all have lost your minds as well… Kim Porter… Essence Magazine… Superhead… Carmen Bryan… New York from the Flavor of Love… all the sistas on Flavor of Love…

So, let us know what you think. Until next time…

Much love and peace,

Gwyneth