Lauryn Hill Receives BET Awards Tribute From Doechii, SZA, Tems, Tierra Whack, Doja Cat, & More

Last night at the BET Awards, living legend and icon Lauryn Hill was honored with the Living Legend Icon Award. The massive tribute began with Ice Cube summarizing Hill's incredible career, beginning with her acting debut in 1993’s Sister Act 2. Bandmate Wyclef Jean then detailed their time in the Fugees. What followed was a star-studded tribute featuring Doechii, SZA, Tems, Tierra Whack, Nas, YG Marley, Lizzo, Queen Latifah, and Common.

The tribute began with The War And Treaty referencing Sister Act 2 as they performed “Joyful, Joyful,” originally performed by the fictional St. Francis Choir in the film. Then Doechii and SZA took on "Ready Or Not," and Tems and Tierra Whack took on "Fu-Gee-La." Hill's daughter Selah Marley gave a rare performance of her mother's title track from her trailblazing debut. Doja Cat then came on for "Superstar." Nas joined her onstage to perform the collaboration "If I Ruled The World." Lizzo and Tierra Whack performed “Doo Wop (That Thing).” Then Hill's son Zion Marley performed his take on the song that is named after him. Alexia Jay covered “Killing Me Softly.” Queen Latifah and Common closed it out with “Lost Ones.”

Hill also gave an impromptu performance of "Ex-Factor" after she heard that no one was going to sing it.

Hill also gave an emotional and inspirational speech:

I do this because I love y’all. I do this because I want you to have everything that I experienced, right? I had wonderful parents who loved on me, poured into me, and protected me. And once I realized that not everybody got to have that experience, I felt like it was my duty, my responsibility to share as much love, and to pour into as much people as I possibly could. And music was a way for me to do that.

But also, I have always cared about the expression and the representation of the dignity of our people. So, you know, we put ourselves some times as artists, we put ourselves in places and in situations where we have to say things that aren’t always comfortable. But we understand that people will understand later.

I fight for y’all. Everybody may not know about it, but I fight for y’all. And fighting for y’all is me fighting for myself, it’s me fighting for my children, it’s me fighting for my parents, it’s me fighting for my grandparents, it’s me fighting for my community. I have a desire to make music as well as I can, or to communicate with people as well as I can because I wan’t people to know that’s what we do. I want people to know what we can do.

All of us, we hold different things. We hold different gifts. Someone else's gifting might be fashion, might be hair, might be consoling someone. It might be this microphone. But that gifting is very important because somebody out there needs your gift. So don't sell your gift short. I'm rooting for everybody to be the best version of themselves that they possibly can, because God made you that way. We're not going to let institutions, we're not going to let traps, stop us from arriving at that destination because that's our inheritance. We may not always agree all the time, but I'm rooting for you. I'm grateful that you root for me sometimes too.

As she continued, she also shouted out her son John, whose 23rd birthday it was, and her daughter Sara who just graduated from high school. Check out footage from the evening below.