My favorite part of the night was P-Diddy's arrival. Sean "P-Diddy" Colmes' imposing, white yacht sped into the dock, creating a huge wake in the water. P-Diddy was standing with his arms outstretched at the bow of the boat, dressed completely in white. But, Colmes was not alone on the yacht. Joining P-Diddy's usual posse were Naomi Cambell and Bruce Willis. It was a cool arrival.
Overall, the awards themselves were pretty tame this year. No one climbed the sets. No one writhed around on the ground in a wedding gown. No one rapped insults about entertainers who were standing a mere two feet away. Perhaps the most surprising moment of the night came during Usher's acceptance speech for Best Male Video. Usher won this award for the song "Yeah." Usher said, "I wanna thank my Lord and Savior for giving me the rhythm and these feet to dance." Why was this surprising? Just not the kind of acceptance speech that you'd expect for a song which contains these lyrics:
These women al on the prowl, if you hold the head steady I'm a milk the cow.
Forget about the game I'm a spit the truth, I won't stop till I get em in they birthday suits.
So gimmie the rhythm and it'll be off with they clothes, then bend over to the front and touch your toes.
Granted, these words are actually rapped by Ludicrous on the winning track, but still ....
Usher wasn't the only artist to explicitly mention his Christian faith. Upon taking home the top honor of the night, Video the of Year, one of the members of OutKast (not Andre 3000 -- the other main guy) declared, "I want to thank my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ." Then the artist continued to be explicit in another way in the performance which flowed directly out of his acceptance speech. He needed to be bleeped out 3 times in the song that followed.
All in all, it was an interesting night, as always, at the VMAs.
