Fat Joe is looking out Paramount Global for scrapping the Hip-Hop Awards whereas nonetheless throwing money at different reveals, and he’s not sugarcoating a factor.

During a convo on his “Joe And Jada” present, the Bronx legend sounded off in regards to the community pulling the plug on the BET Hip-Hop Awards and Soul Train Awards, blaming it on company greed and what he flat-out known as “gentrification.”

“This is a form of gentrification. BET came up as a community station for black people, right? In urban culture. And our man, Bob Johnson, took the check. He sold it. First black billionaire. He sold it, he sold it to Viacom and Paramount, MTV and them, VH1 and them,” Fat Joe explained.

To give that some context, BET received bought to Viacom again in 2001 for about $3 billion. Bob Johnson made historical past as the primary Black billionaire, however that deal shifted BET from a Black-owned platform to a company product beneath Viacom, which later merged with CBS to type Paramount Global.

Now fast-forward to 2025 and BET CEO Scott Mills confirmed the community’s Soul Train and Hip-Hop Awards are on pause, supposedly to “reimagine” the reveals for brand new platforms as cable TV retains dropping steam.

Fat Joe wasn’t shopping for that. He’s been internet hosting the BET Hip-Hop Awards for 3 years working and says he’s seen the finances cuts firsthand.

“Little by little over the years, quietly, they’ve been firing a lot of people behind the scenes in BET and everybody who has something to say, they’ve been firing them. And I know because I’ve been working on the BET Hip-Hop Awards for three years. The budget, not for me, but the budget just kept getting chopped and chopped and chopped,” Fat Joe stated.

He identified how the VMAs are nonetheless getting actual cash thrown at them, and used Katy Perry’s aerial efficiency as proof.

“Last year, I debuted my single with Khaled at the VMAs and Katy Perry’s still flying through the air in the VMAs,” Fat Joe stated.

Joe says it’s not about him getting paid—it’s in regards to the present not having sufficient cash to truly be inventive.

“They [the VMAs] still got the budgets, they got the s###, you know. And so, I think, in the entertainment world, they kept underfunding them and you ain’t got no money to be creative. That’s why you was watching the Ratchet Awards. They ain’t had no bread,” Fat Joe stated.

Meanwhile, the actual cause behind the cost-cutting was most definitely to trim the fats since Paramount just merged with Skydance on Thursday (August 7) in a massive $8.4 billion deal, forming a brand new firm known as “Paramount, A Skydance Corporation.”

As a part of the shake-up, Paramount was in talks to sell off BET to a group led by Scott Mills for round $1.6 to $1.7 billion. No phrase but if BET was bought as a part of the merger.

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