Remy Ma ends Nicki Minaj’s 7-year winning streak at BET Awards
REMY MA HAS ended rival Nicki Minaj’s seven-year winning streak at the 2017 BET Awards, a show highlighted by ’90s R&B and groups popular in that decade, as well as five wins for Beyonce. Ma, who was released from prison in 2014, won Best Female Hip Hop Artist on Sunday in Los Angeles, an award Minaj has won since 2010. Ma last won the prize in 2005, and was sentenced to prison three years later after she shot a former friend after accusing her of theft.
“I wanna thank God first and foremost,” said Ma, who named two correctional facilities in her speech and thanked her mentor Fat Joe and husband-rapper Papoose. “You can make mistakes and come back.”
In March, Ma released the hostile diss track Shether, which earned praised from critics and rap fans. Minaj never officially responded to the song.
At the live show at the Microsoft Theater, ’90s R&B favourites New Edition and Xscape were the most welcomed performers of the night. New Edition, whose three-part biopic was a white-hot ratings success for BET earlier this year, earned the Lifetime Achievement Award and received a lengthy tribute.
It started with the child actors from the movie singing Candy Girl, later followed by the older actors for some of the band’s hits apart from the group, including Bell Biv DeVoe’s Poison and Ralph Tresvant’s Sensitivity. The real group then hit to stage to sing Can You Stand the Rain and Mr. Telephone Man. The actors later joined New Edition for If It Isn’t Love.
Girl group Xscape, set to launch a new reality show on Bravo, reunited at the BET
Awards and sang the popular hits Just Kickin’ It, Understanding and Who Can I Run To? The crowd was in awe, singing along and filming the performance with their phones.
Bruno Mars who tied with Beyonce for Video Of The Year had fun on stage performing the song, Perm. “To the fans, you know I love you. My first BET Award,” he screamed.
Other winners included gospel rapper Lecrae and Migos, who took home Best Group. The hip hop trio also won over the audience with its performances of the hits Bad and Boujee, T-Shirt and Congratulations, with Post Malone.
Chance the Rapper, and his mum, danced during the long set; as did Queen Latifah, Cardi B., Stranger Things actor Caleb McLaughlin and black-ish actress Yara Shahidi, who won the Young Stars award.
“Mary J. got that break up body. Whoa,” screamed Jamie Foxx, who presented an award after Blige’s performance. Leslie Jones of Saturday Night Live hosted the four-hour show. El DeBarge and Kamasi Washignton performed Careless Whisper in honour of George Michael, who died last year on Christmas Day, while Janelle Monae collaborator Roman GianArthur excitedly sang Johnny B. Goode in tribute to Chuck Berry, who died in March.
New York rapper Prodigy, who died last week, was remembered in words by his Mobb Deep partner Havoc and Lil Kim, who appeared on the remix of the memorable Mobb Deep hit, Quiet Storm. Former BET executive Stephen Hill, who the network said was stepping down in March, was praised throughout the night with kind words from Mars and Bobby Brown.