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2026 BET Awards: Full Categories and Nominees Revealed

July 6, 2026 By BeatzHive Editorial 2 min read

2026 BET Awards Honour Stars Across Music, Film, TV and Sports

The 2026 BET Awards took place on Sunday night, celebrating standout achievements across more than 20 competitive categories spanning music, film, television and sports. According to reports from the ceremony, the nominee pool brought together global superstars, emerging acts and long-serving industry figures.

Cardi B And Wizkid Dominate Nomination Lists

This year’s edition reportedly introduced two brand-new honours. The Fashion Vanguard Award drew a star-studded shortlist featuring A$AP Rocky, Bad Bunny, Beyoncé, Cardi B, Colman Domingo, Doechii, Rihanna, Teyana Taylor and Zendaya, while The Pulse Award recognised talk and podcast platforms including the 85 South Show, Baby, This Is Keke Palmer, Charlamagne Tha God, Druski and the R&B Money Podcast.

The music categories were stacked. SZA, Tems, Coco Jones and Kehlani were among the contenders for Best Female R&B/Pop Artist, while Bruno Mars, Usher, Chris Brown and Leon Thomas featured in the male equivalent. Kendrick Lamar, Drake, J. Cole and Doechii led the hip-hop fields, and Album of the Year pitted Cardi B’s Am I the Drama? against projects from Tyler, the Creator, Clipse, J. Cole and Bruno Mars, among others.

African acts also made the list, with Wizkid and Asake nominated together for Best Group and Burna Boy appearing in the Best Collaboration category alongside Gunna. Acting honours saw Denzel Washington, Michael B. Jordan, Angela Bassett and Ayo Edebiri in contention, while the YoungStars Award and Dr. Bobby Jones Best Gospel/Inspirational Award rounded out the night.

Afrobeats Stars Cement Global Mainstream Status

The BET Awards remain one of the most closely watched celebrations of Black excellence in entertainment, and the annual nominations often shape conversations about who is defining the culture in a given year. The addition of new categories signals the show’s continued effort to reflect how audiences now consume entertainment, from fashion moments to podcasts.

For Nigerian and wider African audiences, the presence of names like Wizkid, Asake, Burna Boy and Tems on the ballot underlines how firmly Afrobeats stars have embedded themselves in the global mainstream, keeping the continent’s music in the spotlight on one of America’s biggest award stages.

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