The 2021 BET Hip Hop Awards will return to Atlanta to tape its 16th annual edition on Friday, Oct. 1. The show has emanated from that city in all but three years since it was launched in 2006. The show was held at the Miami Beach Convention Center in 2017-18 and was produced remotely last year, at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The show will be held at Cobb Energy Performing Arts Centre, which was also the site of its shows in both 2016 and 2019. The show will make its broadcast premiere on Tuesday, Oct. 5 — four nights after it is taped — at 8 p.m. ET/PT on BET.
“Hip hop is a global movement that embraces the diversity of expression and reflects what is affecting our community in a raw and unapologetic way,” said Connie Orlando, EVP specials, music programming & music strategy at BET. “We look forward to celebrating this art form and returning to Atlanta for an unforgettable night of entertainment and culture…”
Orlando will oversee the show, with Jamal Noisette set to co-executive produce for BET. Jesse Collins, CEO of Jesse Collins Entertainment, will serve as executive producer, along with two other key executives from his company, Jeannae Rouzan-Clay and Dionne Harmon.
The red-hot Collins is nominated for three Emmy Awards this year, all in the same category: outstanding variety special (live). He is nominated as a producer of the 2021 Oscars, a co-executive producer of the 2021 Grammys, and an executive producer of the Super Bowl halftime show (which is formally known as the Pepsi Super Bowl LV Halftime Show Starring The Weeknd).
Collins landed his first Emmy nomination two years ago in the same category as a producer of the 2019 Grammy Awards.
BET will work closely with Fulton County to support community vaccination efforts and ensure adherence to COVID-19 protocols.
The 2021 BET Hip Hop Awards nominations, determined by a group of music industry insiders, performers and presenters, will be announced at a later date.
DaBaby was the top nominee at last year’s show, with 12 nods, followed by Roddy Ricch (11), Megan Thee Stallion (eight) and Drake (eight). Megan Thee Stallion won hip hop artist of the year. Ricch’s Please Excuse Me for Being Antisocial took hop hop album of the year. Master P received the 2020 I Am Hip Hop Icon award.
Chico Bean, Karlous Miller and DC Young Fly — hosts of the 85 South Comedy Show podcast — hosted last year’s show. Previous hosts include T-Pain, Mike Epps, Snoop Dogg and DJ Khaled.
BET, a subsidiary of ViacomCBS Inc., is the nation’s leading provider of entertainment, music, news and public affairs television programming for the African American audience. The primary BET channel is in 125 million households and can be seen in the U.S., Canada, the Caribbean, the U.K., sub-Saharan Africa and France.
The BET Hip Hop Awards is the No. 3 primetime cable awards show for Black viewers, according to BET, behind the BET Awards and the NAACP Image Awards. (That stat is based on Nielsen live and same-day playback.) BET also quotes Talkwalker Social as saying that the 2020 BET Hip Hop Awards ranked among the year’s top 10 most social cable awards shows.
For more information about the BET Hip Hop Awards, visit bet.com/hiphopawards.
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