Updated

Updated · NBC News · Jun 29

Lauryn Hill Accepts BET Living Legend Award, Performs 2 Classics After 20-Minute Tribute

Updated

Updated · NBC News · Jun 29

Lauryn Hill Accepts BET Living Legend Award, Performs 2 Classics After 20-Minute Tribute

Q: After sweeping the BET Awards, will Teyana Taylor reverse her announced retirement from music?

There is no clear evidence from the BET Awards alone that Teyana Taylor has formally reversed her retirement from music, but the night strongly suggested she remains creatively active and open to continuing as an artist. At the ceremony, Taylor did more than receive the Icon of the Year Award. She also won Best Actress, Video Director of the Year, and the Fashion Vanguard Award, underscoring that her career is expanding across music, film, directing, and fashion rather than ending. In her remarks, she said she had “continued to give the world the artist, actress, director, choreographer, creative director, stylist, designer, writer, producer and chef,” language that points to ongoing artistic output. That said, neither the awards coverage nor the additional reporting includes a direct statement from Taylor announcing a return to recording or touring. Her BET recognition reflects broad influence and momentum, but it does not amount to a formal retirement reversal. The most supportable reading is that Taylor is still very much active in entertainment and may be leaving the door open to music, even if she has not explicitly said she is unretiring. Until she confirms new music plans or publicly withdraws her retirement announcement, any claim that she has definitively reversed it would go beyond the available facts.

3 articles · Updated · NBC News · Jun 29

Lauryn Hill capped Sunday’s BET Awards with impromptu performances of “Ex-Factor” and “Everything Is Everything” after accepting the Living Legend Icon Award at Los Angeles’ Peacock Theater.
A 20-minute tribute from SZA, Doechii, Lizzo, Queen Latifah, Common and Hill’s children Selah and Zion Marley honored her career from the Fugees through 1998’s “The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill.”
Hill, an eight-time Grammy winner, used her speech to urge artists to stay true to their gifts and purpose, saying her fight for them was also for her children and community.
The ceremony also gave Teyana Taylor the Icon of the Year Award in a surprise presentation by Janet Jackson, while music executive Sylvia Rhone received the BET Ultimate Icon Award.
BET’s broader celebration of music and culture included an in memoriam segment for Clive Davis, Richard Smallwood and others, plus tributes to D’Angelo and host Druski’s opening turn as the show’s youngest emcee at 31.