All hail the Queen!
MTV celebrated music’s biggest music videos with this year’s Video Music Awards. The event took place at New Jersey’s Prudential in Newark with co-hosts LL Cool J, Nicki Minaj, and Jack Harlow.
This year, Nicki Minaj was presented the prestiges Vanguard Award. Nicki opened her 10-minute medley performance with “Roman’s Revenge” before segueing into “Monster”, “Beez In The Trap”, “Chun Li”, “Anaconda”, “Moment 4 Life”, “Super Bass”, and her new single, “Super Freaky Girl“.
Following her legendary performance, Nicki was presented with the award from a few of her fans, before the Queen thanked her inspirations, fellow peers, her late father, and others who have passed. Nicki also won the Best Hip Hop award for her Lil Baby-collaboration, “Do We Have A Problem?”
Jack Harlow, who won four awards during the evening, kicked off the ceremony with an epic performance of “First Class” with surprise guest Fergie, who also performed “Glamorous”, her hit song Jack sampled from. “First Class also won the Song Of The Summer award. After the performance, Jack Harlow joined Lil Nas X on stage for their Best Collaboration award for “Industry Baby”. The song also won both Best Art Direction and Best Visual Effects awards.
Eminem and Snoop Dogg reunited on the VMA stage with a partial-animated performance of “From The D To The LBC”. Latto took the throne with a lavish performance of “It’s Givin”, and Latto gave a show-stopping performance of “About Damn Time” and “2 Be Loved (Am I Ready)”, and Marshmello and Khalid rocked the arena with “Numb”. From the outdoor stage, JID repped the A with a performance of “Dance Now” and “Surround Sound”, while Flo Milli gave an electrifying performance of “Conceited”.
Other wins throughout the night included The Weeknd’s “Out Of Time” winning Best R&B, Lizzo’s “About Damn Time” taking the Video For Good award, and Doja Cat’s “Woman” winning Best Choreography.