
BET Awards 2025: Where to watch, host, performers, nominations
BET Awards 2025: Where to watch, host, performers, nominations
Show Caption
Hide Caption
Dapper Dan is 'deeply concerned' about Black culture. Here's why.
Fashion icon Dapper Dan chats with USA TODAY's Ralphie Aversa at the Apollo Theater spring benefit about the Met Gala and the theater's future.
The BET Awards, also known as "Culture's Biggest Night," will bring the most prestigious Black artists and entertainers in one room tonight.
The show is expected to have big moments, performances, and a nostalgic reunion.
Here's what we know about the BET Awards 2025:
How to watch the BET Awards
The 2025 "BET Awards" will premiere live on Monday, June 9 at 8 p.m. ET.
According to a spokesperson, the show will air on several channels, including BET, MTV, MTV2, NAN, Pop, Logo, CMT, and Paramount Network.
The Red Carpet pre-show with hosts Terrence J and Pretty Vee begins at 6 p.m. ET.
Who is hosting the awards show?
Comedian and movie star Kevin Hart is the host for the 2025 BET Awards. In the teaser, Hart said he plans to take the show "to a new level."
Confirmed Performers
Teyana Taylor
GloRilla
Leon Thomas
Playboi Carti
Lil Wayne
106 & Park' reunion: Here's what we know about the 25th anniversary at the 2025 BET Awards
Who has the most nominations?
Rap emcee Kendrick Lamar has a whopping 10 nominations, including for "Album of the Year" for his latest album "GNX."
Doechii, nominated six times, is a contender in the same category for her mixtape "Alligator Bites Never Heal." The rapper is also up for "Video of the Year" and "Viewer's Choice Award" for her hit song, "Denial is a River."
Drake is also nominated for six awards, gaining nods for "Best Male R&B/Pop Artist" and "Best Male Hip Hop Artist." Future and Glorilla were also nominated for the same number of awards.
Kendrick Lamar: 10
GloRilla: 6
Future: 6
Drake: 6
Doechii: 6
Who are the 'Ultimate Icon Award' recipients?
BET's "Ultimate Icon Award" acknowledges industry powerhouses for "their decades of groundbreaking contributions to music, entertainment, advocacy, and community impact," per a press release.
This year's recipients include:
Jamie Foxx
Mariah Carey
Snoop Dogg
Kirk Franklin
Will there be a '106 & Park' reunion?
The former hosts of the early 2000s television staple will return to celebrate the show's 25th anniversary at the 2025 BET Awards, according to a May 6 press release.
The reunion will feature performances from hip-hop and R&B acts whose music videos kept viewers dancing in their living rooms after school.
Among them are Mr. 106 & Park himself, Bow Wow, T.I., B2K, Amerie, Jim Jones, Keyshia Cole, and Mya.
Taylor Ardrey is a news reporter for USA TODAY. You can reach her at tardrey@gannett.com.
Hashtags

Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles


New York Post
32 minutes ago
- New York Post
Atlanta rapper Silentó gets 30 years after pleading guilty to killing his cousin
Silentó, the Atlanta rapper known for his hit song 'Watch Me (Whip/Nae Nae),' pleaded guilty but mentally ill Wednesday to voluntary manslaughter and other charges in the 2021 shooting death of his 34-year-old cousin. The 27-year-old rapper, whose legal name is Ricky Lamar Hawk, was sentenced to 30 years in prison, DeKalb County District Attorney Sherry Boston said in a statement. Hawk also pleaded guilty to aggravated assault, possessing a gun while committing a crime and concealing the death of another. A murder charge was dropped as part of the plea agreement. 3 Rapper Silento, legal name Richard Lamar 'Ricky' Hawk, is seen in a police booking photo after his arrest on murder charges February 1, 2021 in DeKalb County, Georgia. DeKalb County Sheriff's Office via Getty Images DeKalb County police found Frederick Rooks III shot in the leg and face in the early morning hours of Jan. 21, 2021 outside a home in a suburban area near Decatur. Police said the found 10 bullet casings near Rooks' body, and security video from a nearby home showed a white BMW SUV speeding away shortly after the gunshots. A family member of Rooks told police that Silentó had picked up Rooks in a white BMW SUV, and GPS data and other cameras put the vehicle at the site of the shooting. Silentó confessed about 10 days later after he was arrested, police said. Ballistics testing matched the bullet casings to a gun that Silentó had when he was arrested, authorities said. Rooks' brothers and sisters told DeKalb County Superior Court Judge Courtney L. Johnson before sentencing that Silentó should have gotten a longer sentence, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported. The rapper was a high school junior in suburban Atlanta in 2015 when he released 'Watch Me (Whip/Nae Nae)' and watched it skyrocket into a dance craze. Silentó made multiple other albums, but said in an interview with the medical talk show 'The Doctors' in 2019 that he struggled with depression and had grown up in a family where he witnessed mental illness and violence. 3 Silento arrives at the BET Awards in Los Angeles, June 26, 2016. Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP 'I've been fighting demons my whole life, my whole life,' he said in 2019. 'Depression doesn't leave you when you become famous, it just adds more pressure,' Silentó said then, urging others to get help. 'And while everybody's looking at you, they're also judging you.' 'I don't know if I can truly be happy, I don't know if these demons will ever go away.' Silentó had been struggling in the months before the arrest. His publicist, Chanel Hudson, has said he had tried to kill himself in 2020. 3 Rapper Silento poses for a portrait in New York, July 21, 2015. Drew Gurian/Invision/AP In August 2020, Silentó was arrested in Santa Ana, California, on a domestic violence charge. The next day, the Los Angeles Police Department charged him with assault with a deadly weapon after witnesses said he entered a home where he didn't know anyone looking for his girlfriend and swung a hatchet at two people before he was disarmed. In October 2020, Silentó was arrested after police said they clocked him driving 143 miles per hour (230 kilometers per hour) on Interstate 85 in DeKalb County. Hudson said at the time of Silentó's arrest in the killing of Rooks that he had been 'suffering immensely from a series of mental health illnesses.'
Yahoo
43 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Frontman Records With Classic '70s Rock Band For First Time in 45 Years
Frontman Records With Classic '70s Rock Band For First Time in 45 Years originally appeared on Parade. An iconic 1970s rock band announced this week that they reunited in the studio with their former frontman, 45 years since the last time they all recorded an album together. The Doobie Brothers dropped a new album called Walk This Road on Friday, June 6, and they brought back the iconic Michael McDonald, who was last with the band full-time for the 1980 album One Step Closer. McDonald was a lead vocalist for the Doobie Brothers from 1975 to 1982, then appeared with the band sporadically over the years, but has not been on one of their albums since One Step Closer. The 73-year-old Hall of Fame vocalist also famously performed with Steely Dan, Toto, Christopher Cross and Kenny Loggins. RELATED: Iconic '60s Rocker Talks Wild Times With Elton John, John Lennon, Jimi Hendrix and More McDonald reunites with Doobie Brothers founding members Patrick Simmons (guitar, lead/backing vocals), Tom Johnston (guitar, piano, lead/backing vocals) and John McFee (guitar, steel guitar, backing vocals) to go on tour starting August 4 in order to promote Walk This Road, their 16th studio album. The album also features Mavis Staples and Mick Fleetwood. You can pre-order the 10-track album here. In an interview, McDonald told USA Today that times sure have changed in the recording studio due to all of the technological advances. "The technology has changed, for better or worse… The new procedure is interesting. As you're writing the song, you're recording it into a file, and that is the basis you use for the track, even if it's just a feeling," said McDonald. "So it's kind of fun to feel like the song hasn't had to morph into something else. Some of my fondest memories of being in the studio are the first time I heard the band play 'Takin' It To the Streets.' I was like, wow! When the band started playing it, it took on a whole new life. RELATED: Rock Icon, 78, Being Honored by Trisha Yearwood and James Taylor in Concert About the upcoming tour, Simmons told USA Today that they do realize they are in the 70s now and that makes performing live and the grind of a tour a bit harder, but they've been preparing for it. "I've got a hill I live on and walk it several times a day, and am always working on a project. Not that that counts as calisthenics. But I try to always stay in motion and on the road try to get out and walk every day. We're all in our 70s now. I used to think that was old. I do feel it, but it's hard to believe we're out here doing it at this age, and in my head, I'm still 16. You have to think beyond your age. It's a life adventure," said Simmons. The Doobie Brothers released a string of hits starting in 1972. They are best known for "Listen to the Music," "Jesus Is Just Alright," "Long Train Running'", "China Grove," "Black Water," "Takin' It to the Streets" and "What a Fool Believes." 🎬 SIGN UP for Parade's Daily newsletter to get the latest pop culture news & celebrity interviews delivered right to your inbox 🎬 Later this summer, McDonald, Johnston and Simmons will all be inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in the Performing Songwriters category. Frontman Records With Classic '70s Rock Band For First Time in 45 Years first appeared on Parade on Jun 6, 2025 This story was originally reported by Parade on Jun 6, 2025, where it first appeared.
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
A portrait taken in North Philly in the 1980s reconnects poet with cherished memories of her own beloved father
To celebrate Father's Day, The Conversation U.S. asked Philadelphia anthropologist, playwright and poetic ethnographer Kimmika Williams-Witherspoon to reflect on a poem she recently performed to accompany a 1986 photograph by Philadelphia photographer Joseph V. Labolito. Williams-Witherspoon, who also serves as senior associate dean of the Center for the Performing and Cinematic Arts at Temple University, shares how the collaboration came about, and why one of Labolito's photos in particular brought back a rush of cherished memories of being a little girl hanging out with her dad. The whole poem is a tribute to my father, Samuel Hawes Jr., who lived from 1920 to 1989, and the many men like him who were always present and participatory in the parenting of their children and the providing for their families. Because of stereotypes and popular culture – media, movies, news stories – that tend to demonize and pathologize Black men, there's a myth that men in our communities are all cut from the same cloth. For me, the poem discounts that stereotypical narrative and celebrates the African American men that I knew growing up – Daddy, my uncles, the deacons in our church, the neighborhood dads on my block. The men in this photograph represent men like Daddy, who at one point worked two jobs to provide for his family. He drove a yellow cab and worked the graveyard shift as a presser at the U.S. Mint. He took me to school every morning when I was in high school. He made it to every school function or occasion, drove me to and from parties so I could hang out with friends, took me to church every Sunday morning and on those special road trips to Cleveland, Akron, Ohio, and Fort Lauderdale, Florida, throughout my life. Joe Labolito is a Philadelphia photographer whose work, I believe, is visual ethnography at its best. Throughout the '80s, '90s and 2000s, he documented the people, streets and neighborhoods of Philadelphia. His photographs are housed in several public and private collections, including the Special Collections Research Center at Temple University and the Free Library of Philadelphia's Print and Picture Collection. About a year ago, I saw an exhibit of Joe's work at Temple. Since that time, I have been using some of his photographs as a visual prompt for my students, while he and I talked about doing something together down the road. When I was asked to participate in Temple University President John Fry's investiture events in March 2025, I asked Joe if he wanted to do something with me. Right away he said 'Yes … whatever it is.' I asked him to send me maybe 25 of his favorite photos, and instead, he sent me about a hundred. When I got a minute to sift through them, there were 11 that, as soon as I looked at them, immediately prompted lines of poetry. This photograph of the two men and the little girl, however, made me remember an old poem, 'There Are Black Fathers,' I had written a long time ago – on Father's Day on June 19, 1983 – for my father before he passed away from prostate and bone cancer. I went digging through my old journals until I found the poem that I had written for Daddy, and I performed that poem to this photograph at the event. The juxtaposition between the men and the little girl – their beautiful, bright smiles, the joy they seemed to radiate – it all made me think about and remember how much I loved Daddy my entire life but especially as a little girl. That's the power in these kinds of artistic, material and visual artifacts. This photograph transported me right back to my childhood, filled with the warmth of a summer's day, hanging out with my dad, and the promise of a banana Popsicle later in the afternoon. Whatever the prompt – a photograph, a landscape, a person I've passed on the street, a word or phrase – the first draft is a free-write sensory download dump. I ruminate and then write down everything that comes to me in whatever order it comes. And then with each subsequent draft or pass at it, I start reading the poem out loud and tweaking it, making edits, moving and changing things while crafting lines that frame and build the story. I read the piece aloud over and over and over again until the poem tells me when I've got it right. I don't know how, but my ear will tell me when it's done and right with my spirit. Ethnography is an area of anthropology. From the Greek word 'ethnos,' ethno simply means people or culture, and graphy, from the Greek word 'graphia,' is the writing about said people or culture. Traditional ethnographies are usually written in a diarylike journal form. You end up jotting things down – thoughts, feelings, expressions, verbatim texts from interview participants – alongside bits and pieces of theory that correlate. Field notes are a combination of prose and scientific inquiry. I am a proponent of compiling poetic ethnographies – turning my observation and investigation of cultures, communities, and my field notes, into poetic form. Growing up in Philadelphia and a product of Philadelphia public schools, my primary language is mainstream U.S. English, but I tell people that my actual language is poetry. I see the world through poetry, and through the medium of poetry, I think I am better able to articulate the world I see. Read more of our stories about Philadelphia. This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit, independent news organization bringing you facts and trustworthy analysis to help you make sense of our complex world. It was written by: Kimmika Williams-Witherspoon, Temple University Read more: Nurturing dads raise emotionally intelligent kids – helping make society more respectful and equitable Fathers need to care for themselves as well as their kids – but often don't From 'dada' to Darth Vader – why the way we name fathers reminds us we spring from the same well Kimmika Williams-Witherspoon has received funding from Lumena Foundation's Fund for Racial Justice and Equity (2018-19) and PEW Charitable Trusts Arts Grant (2020). Joseph V. Labolito owns the copyright to Philadelphia Collections. Philadelphia Collections research and operations is supported and partially funded by the Bridge award; an internal grant provided by the Office of the Vice President for Research (OVPR) at Temple University for the 2024 - 2025 year.