Janelle Monae And The Roots Lead Prince Tribute At Bet Awards

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Tue Jun 7, 2016 03:38PM

Janelle Monae, The Roots and D´angelo are to honor Prince at the Bet Awards later this month (Jun16).The tribute to the Purple Rain musician, who died in April (16) aged 57 will also feature percussionist Sheila E and other yet to be announced acts.
Bosses at the Black Entertainment Television (BET) Network, who run the awards bash celebrating African Americans and other minorities in entertainment and sport, announced the news on Tuesday (07Jun16), writing on Twitter that these would be, "only a few" of the acts involved.
Since Prince´s death, acts from across the world have paid tribute to the iconic musician, with Stevie Wonder headlining a Los Angeles concert honoring him and Madonna performing her own musical memorial at the America´s Billboard Music Awards last month (May16).
The Vogue singer´s tribute, which saw her belt out the track Prince wrote for Sinead O´Connor, Nothing Compares 2 U, did not go down well with all audiences however, and saw her have a run in with the BET Network.
After her performance, which also included a duet with Stevie Wonder, a post on the TV company´s Twitter feed featuring a trailer for their own Prince tribute read, "Yeah we saw that. Don´t worry. We got you (sic)." It was subsequently deleted.
Madonna responded to the tweet by posting a picture of her in a floral motorcycle jacket Prince had given her, which she captioned, "Wearing the jacket Prince gave me back in the day without permission from BET lol (laugh out loud)! God Bless America."
The BET Awards will be hosted by Black-ish stars Anthony Anderson and Tracee Ellis Ross and will air live in the U.S. from Los Angeles´ Microsoft Theater on 26 June (16).
Big name nominees included Beyonce, The Weeknd, Rihanna and Kendrick Lamar, with Canadian rapper Drake leading the way with nine nominations.
Earlier this month (Jun16), it was announced that Prince, who received a BET Lifetime Achievement Award in 2010, had died after accidentally overdosing on the opioid painkiller Fentanyl.