Take that.
The MTV Video Music Awards celebrated this year’s biggest music videos on Tuesday (Sep. 12) at Prudential Center in Newark, New Jersey. With Nicki Minaj as host for the second consecutive year, the annual ceremony honored Diddy with this year’s Global Icon Award and celebrated Hip Hop’s 50th anniversary with an epic performance.
Mary J. Blige presented Sean “Diddy” Combs the prestigious Global Icon award as the third recipient followed by Red Hot Chili Peppers in 2022 and the Foo Fighters in 2021. Honored for his global impact in musical and beyond, Diddy was joined by his son Christian, and daughters Chance, D’Lila, and Jessie.
“I thought I would be playing for the Pittsburgh Steelers, but God made another choice, and thank God for making this choice,” he said during his speech. “For me to be able to touch you with my music, to make you feel good. That’s my only intention.”
Puff also took the stage for an electrifying performance of his greatest hits from “I’ll Be Missing You” to “It’s All About the Benjamins”. He was joined by son King Combs, Keyshia Cole, and Yung Miami.
The host with the most, Nicki Minaj pulled a double-duty and hit the stage with an elegant performance of her latest single, “The Last Time I Saw You” before blazing the set with a live debut of her new record, “Big Difference”.
“I’m on a whole another level, these bitches is out of they league / These bitches ain’t batting like me / You bitches ain’t badder than me,” she raps. “You bitches don’t count and these bitches can’t count / I am not the one, two, or the three / You bitches look up to me / You said you look up to her, but really you look up to me.”
Earlier in the evening, Lil Wayne kicked off the show with a performance of “Back That Azz Up”, “Uproar” , and his latest single, “Kat Food”. Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion had the arena twerking to their first live performance of their new collaboration, “Bongos”, Doja Cat did a medley of her latest singles, “Attention”, “Paint The Town Red”, and “Demons”, and Future, Swae Lee, A Boogie Wit Da Hoodie, and NAV joined Metro Boomin for an out of this world performance of “Superhero” and “Calling”.
Lil Wayne, Nicki Minaj, LL Cool J, Run-DMC, Slick Rick, Doug E. Fresh, and Grand Master Flash and The Furious Five took the audience and viewers through the different eras of hip hop with a monumental performance. Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five kicked off the set with the old school classic “The Message” and Doug E. Fresh and Slick Rick brought the vibes with “The Show”. Nicki returned to the stage for “Itty Bitty Piggy”, “Red Ruby Da Sleeze, and brought out Lil Wayne for “A Milli”, while Uncle L brisked through “I’m Bad” and “Mama Said Knock You Out,” before joining Darryl “DMC” McDaniels for the RUN-DMC and Aerosmith classic, “Walk This Way”.
Big wins throughout the evening included Nicki Minaj’s “Super Freaky Girl” winning Best Hip-Hop video, Ice Spice winning Best New Artist and SZA’s “Shirt” taking Best R&B. Elsewhere, Best Afrobeat went to Rema and Selena Gomez’s “Calm Down”, Latto earned Song Of The Summer for her feature appearance on Jung Kook’s “Seven”, and Doja Cat’s “Attention” video, directed by Spencer Graves, was given Best Art Direction.
Meanwhile, Diddy will be releasing his new album, The Love Album: Off The Grid this Friday (Sep. 15) and Nicki Minaj is set to release her Pink Friday 2 album November 17.
Photo: Charles Sykes
