Hip-Hop icon Queen Latifah was honored at last night’s BET Awards with the prestigious lifetime achievement award.
Before she hit the stage to accept the award, fellow female rappers Rapsody, Lil Kim Monie Love and MC Lyte paid tribute to Latifah with a high-energy medley of “Ladies First” and “U-N-I-T-Y.”
Watch the performance below.
Latifah was nothing but gracious when she stepped onto the stage to receive her award:
“Thank you so much, everyone. Thank you, my sisters – y’all my sisters in the name of rap. You always have been. I’m so extremely moved that I don’t even know what to say. Let me just say that I want to thank God because God designed this whole thing to be this way,” she said, evidently moved by the tribute.
“There is no way that I could have had the parents that I was born to – my father, my mother [who died in 2018], who is still so much in me – my family, I love you – my siblings. My best friends who ride or die with me whether my face is on the dirt or I’m flying in the skies – they know me. And they’re there for me.”
She was also full of praise for BET.
“I want to thank BET for creating an outlet for beautiful blackness to thrive, to shine. When we couldn’t get played on the radio and other places; we couldn’t get our videos played,” she said.
“There was BET, that allowed us to be in our fullness and to shine. To this night, right now, right here – bless everybody and everyone in the audience for all your support. Black is beautiful. I was raised by strong black women. We can’t live without each other. Celebrate. Celebrate us so together we stand stronger.”
