After a six-year hiatus, VH1’s Hip Hop Honors: All Hail the Queens ceremony returned on Monday night, paying tribute to some of rap’s female artists: Queen Latifah, Missy Elliott, Lil Kim and Salt-N-Pepa.
The show opened with words from Black Lives Matter founders Alicia Garza and Darnell Moore.
“This movement is grounded in black peoples’ dignity, justice and freedom. It’s about love, not violence,” announced Garza.
Queen Latifah, who was honoured for her rap accomplishments in a video tribute from First Lady Michelle Obama, spoke out about the ongoing racial tensions in the United States, spurred by the separate shooting deaths of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile by police officers.
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“We all know that the world and our world is really tense right now,” Latifah said while being honoured. “It’s a lot of tension. It’s a lot of angst. It’s a lot of hurt. A lot of pain. I’m hoping that we can somehow manage to channel all of these emotions that we have in a positive way and really do something to change our world.”
The ceremony, hosted by Eve, celebrated women who have broken all kinds of barriers in the hip-hop genre, with visual tributes and artists like Lil Mama and Teyana Taylor performing for the four honourees.
“All of these queens in this building, we built hip-hop,” Latifah stated. “We built hip-hop. And there’s no way that I can allow us to be erased from the history or the future of hip-hop.”
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