Usher is receiving his flowers this year. The R&B icon was the man of the hour at the 2024 BET Awards Sunday (June 30) as this year’s Lifetime Achievement Award recipient.

Ahead of Usher receiving the award, BET set up the moment with an epic tribute medley performance featuring a plethora of artists giving their best Usher impressions, running through anthems from the 45-year-old’s decorated discography.

While Usher may not rock the sandals and white linen fit Childish Gambino lined up, the multi-hyphenate did the R&B legend’s 2002 smash “U Don’t Have to Call” justice with a smooth cover before Keke Palmer joined him on stage. Palmer took it back to 1997’s “You Make Me Wanna…,” which landed on Usher’s sophomore My Way album. The Illinois native put her dance skills to the test and finished off undressing from her white kicks, bedazzled jeans and Braves cap.

Summer Walker notched a guest appearance on Usher’s 2023 Coming Home album, and delivered her steamy verse to their sultry “Good Good” collab, which also features 21 Savage. Sans Savage and with Usher watching from the front row, Summer and her team of dancers in black corsets and matching combat boots held down the fort.

Performers came from the crowd as Coco Jones surprised the crowd at Los Angeles’ Peacock Theater, running through Usher’s “There Goes My Baby.” The emerging singer seductively danced in front of Jennifer Goicoechea (Usher’s wife), and then had the 45-year-old luminary stand up before she returned to the stage.

“Superstar” is a fan-favorite off Usher’s 2004 Confessions classic, and Marsha Ambrosius stepped up for the tender cover. Chloe Bailey joined the party, singing “Good Kisser” in a shiny white leotard.

With “Nasty” shooting up the charts, Tinashe fittingly made a cameo, reimagining Usher’s “Nice & Slow.” Nashe put her own spin on the My Way classic and added a dance routine that the singer himself seemed to be in approval of.

Next up, Victoria Monét and Teyana Taylor worked a tag-team collaboration, performing “Bad Girl,” which had the camera doing flips while trying to keep up with the gymnastic acrobatics from the duo.

Latto closed out the tribute performance with the massive “Yeah!” sans guest appearances from Lil Jon and Ludacris; the topped the Billboard Hot 100 for 12 consecutive weeks in 2004. Big Latto even tweaked some of the lyrics to fit more of what she’s bringing to the table. “Big butt and some double-Ds,” she raps.

Watch the medley performance honoring Usher at the 2024 BET Awards below.

The 2024 BET Awards helped close out Black Music Month on Sunday (June 30) with performances by Will Smith, GloRilla, Latto, Shaboozey, Megan Thee Stallion, Tyla and many more.

Ice Spice – who was nominated in three categories at the 2024 BET Awards – performed two of her recent singles during the live broadcast from the Peacock Theater in Los Angeles. Joined by dancers twerking on motorcycles, Ice Spice stood in front of a set designed to look like a gas station while twerking her way through “Phat Butt” in a lacy bikini bottom and fuzzy white boots. Segueing into “Think U the Sh-t (Fart),” she confidently strutted around the stage delivering lines like “Be quick, but I’m quicker / Be thick, but I’m thicker / She could be rich, but I’m richer.”

“Phat Butt” was recently released, while “Think U the Sh-t (Fart)” hit the top 40 of the Billboard Hot 100 in February. Ice Spice was named Billboard Women in Music’s 2024 Hitmaker. “I think this is some of my best work,” Ice Spice told Billboard of her upcoming album, Y2K. “It’s not going to be too long — it’s going to be sweet and to the point.”

Ice Spice is nominated for best collaboration and video of the year, both for her Nicki Minaj collab (with Aqua) “Barbie World” from the Barbie movie. She is also up for the BET Award for best female hip-hop artist. Minaj and Ice Spice previously collaborated on a “Princess Diana” remix, which she described as her “dream collab fulfilled.”

Taylor Swift‘s stage didn’t perform as planned at the start of “The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived” during Saturday’s show in Dublin.

As the pop icon launched into the first few lines of the track from The Tortured Poets Department — “Was any of it true/ Gazing at me starry-eyed/ In your Jehovah’s Witness suit/ Who the f— was that guy?” — concertgoers noticed the stage was malfunctioning. The elevated section Swift stood on had failed to lower when it was supposed to, leaving her momentarily stranded.

Swift didn’t flinch over the glitch.

Fortunately, she didn’t have to wait long for one of her dancers, Jan Ravnik, to lend a hand and help her down.

In a closeup video from Swift’s Tortured Poets set of the concert posted by a fan, it looks and sounds like the pop star’s trying to hold in laughter as Ravnik offers assistance.

The show must go on, and Swift’s three-and-a-half-hour show did.

Swift’s international Eras Tour was at Dublin’s Aviva Stadium for three concerts this weekend. Next, she’ll take the tour to Amsterdam for a trio of dates at Johan Cruijff Arena from July 4-6.

On Sunday, Billboard announced Swift’s The Tortured Poets Department remains at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 albums chart for a 10th consecutive, and total, week.

At this point, Swift has played the majority of the 31-track collection live on The Eras Tour at least once. The Tortured Poets section of the show includes tracks “But Daddy I Love Him,” a small taste of “So High School,” ‘Who’s Afraid of Little Old Me?” and “Down Bad,” which transitions to “Fortnight.” It wraps up with “The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived” (usually with a functioning stage) and “I Can Do It With a Broken Heart.”

Other tracks from the album have had their live debut in Swift’s acoustic section, in which she offers two surprise-song performances. This weekend’s firsts included “The Albatross” on Saturday and “Clara Bow” on Sunday for Stevie Nicks, who was in the VIP tent and filming Swift’s song with her cell phone.

See clips of Swift expertly handling the Saturday stage malfunction below.

Closer look to the stage malfunction last night during ‘The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived’ in Dublin#TaylorSwift #DublinTSTheErasTour #TSTheErasTour #taylorsversion pic.twitter.com/2OkQntR6dN

— Swiftie’s Unite (@swiftiesaunite) June 30, 2024

🚨| El dia de ayer, en el segundo show del The Eras Tour en Dublín, también hubo fallas técnicas tanto en el escenario como en las pantallas. #DublinTSTheErasTour pic.twitter.com/AUBmGgGtYm

— Taylor Access (@TheTaylorAccess) June 30, 2024

Will Smith performed his new single, “You Can Make It,” with Chandler Moore, Kirk Franklin and Sunday Service Choir for the first time during the 2024 BET Awards on Sunday night (June 30).

“You are in the smoke and the fire/ Tight rope on the wire/ I see you’re broken and tired/ And all your hope is expired/ You’re just done with the change and the games and the shame/ And the world is insane, all the pain from the flames,” Smith rapped while standing in a ring of fire.

But the Sunday Service Choir’s soothing harmonies and Moore’s sweet hook turned the track’s initial downtrodden mood upside down. “Don’t give up on me, I need you to hold on/ Know you’re deep up in the storm/ But I know you can face it (Face it), ayy/ It can get dark on the road and you’re feeling all alone/ Don’t lose sight of where you’re going/ ‘Cause I know you can make it, oh, woah,” Moore sang before a storm snuffed the fire and rained down on Smith.

“Yo, Will, if I can testify for a minute?” asked Kirk Franklin before walking up to deliver a sermon about persevering through tough times with God’s grace, while Smith and the Sunday Service Choir got into formation in the middle of the red-colored stage.

“Nobody gets an easy ride/ We all have a cross to bear/ But there’s wisdom in that fire/ And every moment in your life is an opportunity/ We are not being punished, we are being forged/ Dance in your darkness moments,” Smith said solemnly at the end of his performance while the “Dance In Your Darkest Moments” line flashed above on the screen.

“It’s a blessing, that’s a Philly legend. I grew up watching him my whole life. I recorded that hook in 2020 and I sent that to Ayo, and then I think Ayo started working with Will this year and just played him that hook. And he just jumped on the verses. So that’s a blessing,” Fridayy told Billboard‘s deputy director of R&B/hip-hop Carl Lamarre on the red carpet earlier this evening. “I talked to him a few times on the DM, but this the first time I’m meeting him.

Taraji P. Henson hosted the show for the third time. The 2024 BET Awards took place at Peacock Theater in Los Angeles.

Watch Will Smith’s debut performance of “You Can Make It” below: