DMX given special award

[Nosak]

DMX was given a special award for having his first four albums debut at No. 1, but beyond that it was not a very successful night for hip-hop at the Billboard Awards. To start off Tuesday's show at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, host Bernie Mac offered a few tips on acceptance speeches and called out "all you rappers." "Don't bring up the whole neighborhood," Mac said. "You don't need 59 people to pick up one trophy." It turned out Mac had nothing to worry about, because there weren't too many MCs that made the trip up to the podium. R&B and hip-hop were combined into one convenient category and R. Kelly made a clean sweep of all six trophies he was up for, while Jill Scott won the only other R&B/hip-hop award -- Female Artist of the Year. The Billboard Awards are pretty cut and dry since they're based on the charts, but there's still some confusion as to just how they divide the categories. Ja Rule and Jay-Z apparently generated enough sales and airplay to be noted as "nominees" for R&B/Hip-Hop Artist of the Year (which one would assume is a broader category than "rap"), but Lil' Romeo took home Rap Artist of the Year. So Ja and Jay were two of the top four R&B/Hip-Hop artists, but neither one of them was the top rap artist? Lil' Bow Wow's "Bow Wow (That's My Name)" was named Rap Single of the Year in the only other hip-hop-related award. Eve performed twice at the show -- once with Alicia Keys and Angie Stone and also at the end of the broadcast with an all-star cast of performers that included Jermaine Dupri, Nelly and P. Diddy for a version of the recently released remake of Marvin Gaye's "What's Going On."

[Bishop]

but of course, X "missed his plane"