Megan Thee Stallion, Usher, Will Smith and others to perform at BET Awards

This year's BET Awards will kick off Sunday with a special live performance by Megan the Stallion. The rapper is one of many A list performers hitting the stage. She's nominated in several categories along with Usher, Beyoncé and SZA. Drake leads the nominations with seven nods, followed by Nicki Minaj as the second most nominated artist. Taraji P Henson is returning as the host for what the network calls culture's biggest night. So for more on what we can expect, I'm joined by the president of BET, Scott Mills. So good to see you again. Every time I see the promos for the BET Awards, it it just like you can't. It's like you can't miss a moment. It's just one huge star after another. What are you most excited for this weekend? Good morning. Thank you for having me. We are unbelievably excited. First, the show's never been packed with more talent. The, and the moment that we have the combination of artists across kind of every range and whether it's a the, the younger artists and the newer artists to the artists that are just at their absolute prime and all of the artists that are coming back and bringing their classics. It's the range of talent that I think I am most excited about. And then coupled with the fact that there's so many people who are coming out to participate in the Usher tribute, the the Usher tribute literally is so big, it could be its own show. Oh, really? OK. Yeah. You know, how to, you know how to sell a thing, Sir. So this is interesting. Will Smith is set to take the stage. Clearly, he's had a little bit of downtime. He's got some new music. I'm. I'm. I'm really curious as to, you know, what we can expect. But also, how did that come about? Well, you know, the really fun thing is, is over a decade ago Will hosted the BET Awards. And actually I think it was the best hosting undertakings we've had at the BET Awards. He was just brilliant. And he he has a new song and he's decided that the that the venue that he wants to be the first live performance of his brand new song is BET. And when Will Smith calls BET and says, I want to perform my brand new song, BET says absolutely. Mr. Smith, you did allude to the Usher a lifetime achievement award. I mean, it's funny because I still think of Usher as a younger person, right? And so I think if this is his lifetime achievement award, he's got a whole other lifetime of achieving to come. And we we're lucky enough to witnesses. But what does this really mean to Usher? I mean, has he talked about receiving this award? Like, I don't know how he got word that he was getting it. It's a hugely big deal to Usher. And one of the things that we find is that when we BET communicate that we're going to acknowledge an extraordinary member of our community and of our culture, then it actually catalyzes all of these other entities to then say, OK, this is the person that we're honoring this year. So I'm in LA. Last night, ASCAP had an event to honor Usher in New York. A couple of weeks ago, the Apollo Theater honored Usher. And so 2024 is really this year where Usher is receiving his flowers. And we think the culmination of that is really going to be this extraordinary moment. Almost an entire show in the BET Awards, The range of people coming out to to pay tribute to Usher is just extraordinary from from classics like Lauryn Hill, who are who's going to come out to participate tribute, right? I mean, you don't expect them, by the way. Then since Lauren's there, we'll have a little Fugees reunion. Why not do that? But then have all of the younger artists like Lotto and what have you participate into in the tribute as well. And so you'll have all of that going on. And as you've mentioned already, the show opens with Megan the stallion. That's going to be great fun. She'll be joined by Glorilla. Love the fact that Tyler is going to be there. Gun is going to be performing in the show. So it really has the show has such range. It's amazing. I feel pretty good that I recognize every single name that you, that you, you listed there. So I, I think I'm, I'm, I'm up on everything. So listen, I, I have to ask you about the elephant in the room. I don't know. Drake and Kendrick both nominated. Who's responsible for the seating chart? Well, that is a fantastic question and I do think that the the voting for best male artist, best male rap artist may be reflective of that unusual dynamic that exists. We are in LA, right? It's worthy to note that the pop out recently occurred here to extraordinary success and will be interesting to see how many references to the dynamic that exists there show up in the show. So we're very excited about seeing how that all plays out. Yeah, that should be really interesting. Any other surprises you want to sneak to us before we have to let you go? Oh, that's interesting. I think, you know, I always get in trouble because I share things. But since you all are family, I think I would say that it it'll be really fun. We've got Shibouzi in the show. We don't typically have country stars in our show. So that'll be a really fun element. And I love the fact that Donald Glover is coming to pay tribute to Usher as childhood. You know, that's another piece that I think, OK, don't tell us anymore. We want you to keep us guessing. Scott Mills, thank you so much. I'll be watching.