Black Music Honors is returning for its eighth year at Cobb Energy Performing Arts Centre on Friday, May 19.
The two-hour annual event that pays homage to exceptional Black musicians will honor multi-hyphenate Missy Elliott, R&B trio SWV, singer Evelyn “Champagne” King, vocalist Jeffrey Osborne and veteran gospel group The Hawkins Family this year. Double Grammy-winning singer-songwriter LeToya Luckett and comedian/actor DeRay Davis are co-hosting for the evening.
Credit: Richard Shotwell/Invision/AP
Credit: Richard Shotwell/Invision/AP
Arriving just in time for Black Music Month, musical tributes to the honorees will be performed by 702, Tweet, Lil Mo, Kenny Lattimore, Raheem DeVaughn, Dave Hollister, Donnie McClurkin, Tamar Braxton, Anthony Hamilton, Tina Campbell, Juvenile, Elle Varner, Sevyn Streeter, Nicole Wray, Le’Andria Johnson, Zacardi Cortez and Robin Thicke among others.
Elliott is receiving the Music Innovator Icon Award. The multiple Grammy-winning singer, songwriter, producer and rapper is responsible for memorable hits and jaw-dropping music videos like “The Rain (Supa Dupa Fly),” “Get Ur Freak On,” “Work It,” and “Lose Control.” The writer behind songs for Beyoncé, Monica and Aaliyah is the first woman rapper to earn induction into both the Songwriters Hall of Fame and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
Credit: Akili-Casundria Ramsess
Credit: Akili-Casundria Ramsess
SWV, this year’s Urban Music Icon, is among the best-selling female groups of the 1990s. The girl group that effortlessly straddles between uptempo cuts and soulful ballads like “Weak,” “I’m So Into You,” “Can We” and “Rain” is gearing up for the Summer Block Party Tour with male R&B groups Jodeci and Dru Hill and currently stars on the reality show, “SWV and XSCAPE: The Queens of R&B,” on Bravo.
Osborne will take home the Legends Award. The former lead singer of ‘70s funk and R&B outfit L.T.D. made a splash with classics such as “Back in Love Again,” “Holding On,” and “Love Ballad.” As a solo artist, he kept the momentum into the 1980s with “You Should Be Mine (The Woo Woo Song)” and “On the Wings of Love.”
Credit: AP/Business Wire
Credit: AP/Business Wire
As R&B Music Icon, King made a splash on the dance floor as a teenager in the late 1970s and early ‘80s with her pulsating grooves that meshed R&B, funk and disco. Beginning with the gold-certified, Top 10 pop debut “Shame” in 1977, she went from cleaning up record label offices to churning out staples like “Love Come Down,” “I’m in Love” and “Betcha She Don’t Love You.”
Credit: Frank Micelotta/Invision/AP
Credit: Frank Micelotta/Invision/AP
The Hawkins Family is earning the Gospel Music Icon honor. With a legacy spanning six decades, the Grammy-winning musical dynasty originally based out of Oakland, California, blended together inspirational messages with rock, jazz, soul and gospel arrangements. The relatives, led by both late musicians and arrangers Edwin and Walter Hawkins, are collectively responsible for timeless songs like the massive “Oh Happy Day,” “Lay Down (Candles in the Rain),” “Going Up Yonder” and “Jesus Christ is the Way.”
Produced by Chicago-based production company Central City Productions (CCP), Black Music Honors commemorates iconic and trailblazing acts who contributed vastly to both Black culture and American music globally. CCP founder Don Jackson is executive producing Black Music Honors along with Jennifer J. Jackson as producer and Michael A. Johnson as both producer and director.
Past honorees include Dionne Warwick, Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis, Stax Records, Dallas Austin, Arrested Development, Xscape and Keri Hilson.
“Black music is the heartbeat of our culture, and the honorees for this years’ Black Music Honors represent the soul of American music,” Don Jackson said in a press release. “We pay homage to the musical innovators who have paved the way for future generations. Our tribute performances not only celebrate the honorees of yesterday, but also showcase the influence and impact of their iconic sounds and styles on today’s artists with a beautiful symbiosis of past and present.”
Black Music Honors will premiere on the Stellar Network June 3; in national broadcast syndication from Saturday, June 10 through Sunday, July 2; and on Bounce TV on June 19.
IF YOU GO
8th Annual Black Music Honors
6:30 p.m. May 19. $34.50-$59.50. Cobb Energy Performing Arts Centre, 2800 Cobb Galleria Parkway, Atlanta. 770-916-2852, cobbenergycentre.com.
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