We’ve covered the best fashion moments from the 2016 BET awards held on Sunday June 26, now it’s time to fill you in on the good bits you may have missed.
Beyoncé and Kendrick Lamar blow up on stage
Ever since the Formation video dropped, Beyoncé has been seen as a political singer of sorts, so it came as no surprise when the singer belted Freedom, another song from her visual album, Lemonade. What made the performance, with its water splashes, bursts of fire and mist, even more exciting was the guest appearance of rapper Kendrick Lamar.
Jesse Williams gives the best speech of the night
Though Black Coffee being the first South African to win a BET Award and Beyoncé’s electrifying performance were highlights of the awards evening, it was Grey’s Anatomy star Jesse Williams who stole the show when he was honoured with BET’s Humanitarian Award. In October 2014, the 34-year-old joined protests in Ferguson, Missouri, to campaign against the shooting of Michael Brown. He was also an executive producer of Stay Woke, a documentary about the Black Lives Matter movement, that premièred in May. He has written extensively on BLM movement and met with President Obama earlier this year to discuss his humanitarian work. His acceptance speech was so powerful that it received a standing ovation midway – even Samuel L Jackson remarked later in the show that he hadn’t heard a speech like it since the 1960s.
Prince is remembered and honoured
It was supposed to be a single performance that would pay tribute to the late Prince, but it developed into a full collaboration ensemble that featured big names in the industry singing all Prince’s hit songs. The performers included Stevie Wonder, The Roots, Erykah Badu, Jennifer Hudson, Tori Kelly, Sheila E and more.