Fight at Vibe awards boosts UPN ratings

Rap producer Dr. Dre may have been bruised and shaken and a few attendees may have been bloodied during a brawl at Vibe magazine’s music awards ceremony Monday in Santa Monica, but the publicity apparently contributed to a ratings boost for the UPN television network when the show was broadcast the following night.

The whole affair has saddened and angered members of the hip-hop community -- at least those who would agree to talk about the incident, in which Dr. Dre was punched in the face several times by a man who was then stabbed by one or more of the other attendees.

“The unfortunate truth is that [violence] can be good for ratings,” said Stephen Hill, BET’s senior vice president for music programming and talent, who works on the annual BET Awards. “Organizers are certainly not including violence in their marketing plan, but unfortunately, it does end up promoting the event.”

In fact, overnight ratings from Tuesday’s telecast indicate it attracted about 5.4 million viewers, up 26% from the audience that tuned in to the more smoothly run 2003 Vibe awards.

“We are deeply saddened by the incident,” Vibe President Kenard Gibbs said in a statement. “It is unfortunate that an event so many people worked very hard to create has been tainted by the actions of a few individuals.... It is a testament to the true vision of the Vibe Awards that the magnificent talent and staff continued on to create a fantastic show.”

The show’s taping was resumed after dozens of police brought order to the proceedings in a Santa Monica airport hanger, where the show was taped. Santa Monica police issued an arrest warrant Tuesday for rapper Young Buck, who they said was one of three men who brandished knives against Jimmy James Johnson, identified by police as the man who approached Dre ostensibly for an autograph, then began hitting him. Buck, a member of the rap group G-Unit, released a solo album, produced by Dre, that entered the national album sales chart at No. 3 in August.

Tuesday’s telecast included no footage of the violence, but there were clues.

Dr. Dre looked angry and disoriented when accepting a lifetime achievement award. He told viewers, “They can’t stop me. I don’t care.”

Snoop Dogg’s bodyguard was in full view on screen during the rapper’s performance of “Drop It Like It’s Hot,” and rapper Common inserted a line about the evening’s violence during his collaboration with Jadakiss and Anthony Hamilton on “Why?” Host Tyra Banks made a plea to “have more love in the room” and urged those in the audience to “respect one another.”

The incident “reflects badly on certain individuals who decided to be disruptive,” said BET’s Hill, but not on the awards show. He thinks that violence at hip-hop events sparks more attention than melees at rock concerts or sporting events.

Other hip-hop and entertainment industry sources, however, were put off and declined comment on the whole affair.

Feuding rivals have been a key component in rap since it began, and some rappers have increased their street credibility -- and record sales -- following a court date or a clash with an adversary. But the reality of violence, as well as the potential for it, along with often shoddy concert production values, helped keep rap performers from being major players in the concert world through the 1980s and much of the ‘90s.

That has changed in recent years as Eminem, Dr. Dre, Jay-Z and other rappers avoided those problems and delivered big time at the box office, in part because of heightened security and police presence at concerts.

Hip-hop awards shows have also struggled to overcome a reputation for violence.

A few months before he was slain eight years ago in Las Vegas, rapper Tupac Shakur and his crew engaged in a tense confrontation with rival rapper Notorious B.I.G. and his entourage at the Soul Train Music Awards at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles. Notorious B.I.G. was shot to death after attending the Soul Train ceremony in 1997.

An awards show hosted by hip-hop magazine the Source at the Pasadena Civic Auditorium four years ago significantly topped the ratings of the publication’s previous shows after several fights broke out during the taping. The Source hired new security after that and has not experienced major incidents of violence since, and Vibe’s inaugural awards ceremony last year ran comparatively smoothly.

Monday’s incident made participants and observers worry that new violence would negate those recent strides.

“Hip-hop took a lot of hits [after the Source awards in 2000] and we in the industry felt it,” said Tracii McGregor, former vice president of content and communications for the Source. “Vibe will definitely feel the negative effects of this.”

Still, even though producers of awards shows have not eliminated violence, some think it’s unfair to look at it as a pattern. “I’d hate to call a couple of incidents ‘a pattern,’ ” Hill said. “Unfortunately, that violence is what ends up attracting media attention.”

Rap’s highest-profile performer, Eminem, addresses concerns that hip-hop artists are pawns in a larger game in the song “Like Toy Soldiers” from his new “Encore” album, which debuted at No. 1 this week on the national sales chart.

Citing his own long-standing feuds with rappers Ja Rule and Benzino and the Source magazine, Eminem attempts to bury the hatchet with a rap.

In a recent VH1 interview, Eminem spoke of his motivation for writing “Like Toy Soldiers.”

“When I say ‘toy soldiers,’ the phrase, it’s symbolic to all of us in this rap game,” he said. “A lot of times when rappers have beef, their sales [increase]. So meanwhile, big record labels and heads of record labels, they benefit off this. They go home at night and they can sleep.

“Meanwhile, we’re really out here ... and when we’re not out here, some of our people are out here. Usually the innocent people that really ain’t got much to do with it -- besides affiliation -- end up getting hurt or killed. So [“Like Toy Soldiers”] was, metaphorically speaking, my way of saying, ‘Before this goes any further, I’m done with it.’ ”

Times correspondent Baz Dreisinger reported from New York.