Last night’s BET Awards was a star-studded affair, with Jack Harlow and Brandy resolving their “beef” on stage, a surprise appearance by Mariah Carey, and performances from the new class of stars like Chloe and Giveon. However, the evening’s highlight was undoubtedly the section of the show that Diddy took over when he received a Lifetime Achievement Award. Puff called on his entire rolodex to ring the moment in, from a taped intro by Jay-Z to performing in his own tribute performance, even pulling a masked-and-booted Kanye West out of self-exile to give a speech.
After Jay’s salute, the performance took a tour through Diddy’s career, from his time as an executive at Uptown Records, through the B.I.G. and Shyne eras of Bad Boy, to his new single with Bryson Tiller from his forthcoming R&B album. (While it’s always great to see Lil Kim and the LOX, the most surreal moment here was definitely seeing Diddy and Shyne sharing a stage together for the first time in decades, given their infamous history).
The most poignant moment came towards the end of the show when Diddy followed an old video tribute from Kim Porter with a performance of “I’ll Be Missing You,” changing some of the words to make it about her—evoking the very first time he performed the song at the MTV VMAs after B.I.G. died.
He was then introduced to receive the Lifetime Achievement award by the formidable combo of Babyface and Kanye—who’s still dressing like the streetwear Slender Man in a Hood By Air jacket and his now trademark opaque black mask. West referred to Diddy as “my favorite artist” and praised him for breaking boundaries in hip-hop over the last three decades.
“I go to him for advice to this day. He inspires so many of my life choices, my wife choices,” West said before cheekily alluding to how his marriage to Kim Kardashian has turned out. “This man has been through and survived a lot of stuff, and broke through a lot of doors, so we could be standing… He broke down so many doors of classism, taste, culture, swag. Puff, if I never told you, I love you. You’re my brother.”
Kanye and Diddy have been close for years, and Diddy even appears in part two of the jeen-yuhs documentary early in Kanye’s career. In that scene from 2006, the pair do a joint interview in which, West said that he had long been inspired to emulate Diddy.
In addition to memorializing Kim Porter, Diddy shouted out his ex-girlfriend, Cassie, for “holding him down during tough times,” and pledged $1 million to his alma mater, Howard University, as well as another $1 million to Jackson State, specifically citing the HBCU’s head football coach, Deion Sanders. During the speech, his current paramour, Yung Miami of the City Girls, held up a poster cheering him on. Diddy’s new album is due out later this year.