By Steven Roberts

The BET Awards aired last night, and there were plenty of memorable moments. Jay-Z and Young Jeezy opened the show with a performance of "As Real as it Gets," Hov took home the MVP of the Year Award and Ice Cube was honored with the "I Am Hip-Hop" lifetime achievement award for "knockin' n----s out the box, daily, weekly, monthly and yearly." There were also performances from Snoop, Gucci Mane — excuse me, GUCCI! — and the recently-reunited Goodie Mob.

But the main segments everyone is talking about this morning are the three cyphers that took place during the show, most notably the cypher featuring Mos Def, Black Thought of the Roots and Eminem. Half of the MTV Newsroom is still debating who came the hardest.

Mos Def started off the cypher introducing the three MCs and proclaiming that since they were in his hometown, "I gotta do this for Brooklyn." The Mighty Mos proceeded to shout out various blocks in the borough in his freestyle. Black Thought represented for Philly and completely blacked out. And Eminem brought up the rear and completely murdered it. Slim Shady blended the pill-popping, inane pop culture references and amazing lyrical talent that everyone was expecting from Rehab.

There were also plenty of stand-outs from the first two cyphers. The first saw Nicki Minaj switch up her cadence between her regular high-pitched voice to an even squeakier animated one, while Joe Budden brought the same lyrical prowess that has made him such a polarizing figure. The second was a blend of teachers and students: Old-schooler KRS-One introduced newcomers Wale, Nipsey Hussle and Tunisian MC Gsan, each of whom threw down like veterans.

What do you think? Did Eminem steal the cypher or should the lyrical crown be given to Black Thought or Mos Def? Leave your thoughts in the comments!

By Steven Roberts

My day started off pretty great. "Steven! Go cover the VH1 Hip Hop Honors rehearsal! Bring back something good!" Yes, I thought. I'll get to produce something. I'll be able to direct a shooter, interview people I idolize and get out of the office for the day. Then I was handed a flipcam and a digital camera and told to "go have fun."

Flipcam or not, I decided I was going to get out there and bring back gold. Read more...

A Tribe Called Quest, the Pharcyde, De La Soul. The date is ... last Saturday?!

The 1994 — excuse me, 2008 — Rock the Bells Tour is well under way, and I was there at the Los Angeles installment to catch up with a truly epic bill of hip-hop greats, both old and new. This year’s lineup is no joke, combining the aforementioned, fully reunited legends with contemporary, sure-to-be-hall-of-famers like Nas and Mos Def, and of course several up and coming “kids" (Kids in the Hall and Cool Kids, to be exact) to form a monumental trifecta of hip-hop’s past, present and future. Laugh it up, you lucky New Yorkers, but the rest of the country will be just fine without Jay-Z.

Hip-hop artists are genuinely the hardest workers in showbiz, as every artist we spoke with had all sorts of projects in the works. Expect more from Murs, Rakim, De La Soul, Method Man, Ghostface and Raekwon (but don’t let all the other reunions get your hopes up for catching a glimpse of Wu-Tang).

Read the rest of this post on the You R Here blog ...

· Mos Def is going to have to start learning the duck walk. He has signed on to play rock pioneer Chuck Berry in Cadillac Records, a movie about the influential blues and rock label, Chess Records, and the Chicago music scene in the 1950s. Gabrielle Union, Adrien Brody and Cedric The Entertainer co-star. Meanwhile, at a headlining gig last night in New York City, Mos previewed new, unreleased material and promised that his new album will be out this summer. We believe him.

· U2 already have more money than you and everyone you know, combined, ever will in your entire lifetime. And now, they will have even more. The band have formalized a deal with concert promoters Live Nation for merchandising, branding and digital rights (let's call this a 270-degree deal; U2 will continue to release albums on their label, Universal), reported at $100-million/12-years. Live Nation, who recently signed Madonna to a (reportedly) $120-million/10-year deal, has promoted U2's tours since the mid-1980s. Said Bono, "We've been dating for over 20 years now, it's about time we tied the knot."

· Beanie Sigel is back behind bars. The rapper, who spent a year in jail after a 2004 drug and weapons conviction, was in court on Friday where a judge sentenced him to three months in prison for allegedly giving a fake urine sample to his probation officer on February 29, and testing positive five times earlier in March for controlled substances, including Xanax and the pain killer Percocet. Faking a urine sample, not The Solution.