Sheila E., The Roots and More to Honor Prince at BET Awards

The 2016 BET Awards air live on Sunday, June 26

Image
Sheila E. and Prince. Photo: Mark J. Terrill/AP Photo

BET is planning to royally honor Prince at its annual awards show.

The network announced Tuesday that Sheila E., The Roots, D’Angelo and Janelle Monée will pay tribute to the late icon with performances at the 2016 BET Awards on June 26.

BET’s announcement came on what would have been the legend’s 58th birthday, and people around the world celebrated his legacy, from the governor of his home state, Minnesota, declaring June 7 “Prince Day” to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum in Cleveland throwing a “Let’s Go Crazy”-themed dance party.

BET’s Prince tribute will be the second time a major awards show has honored the late icon. On May 22, Madonna, Questlove and Stevie Wonder performed a medley of Prince songs at the Billboard Music Awards.

Shortly after the performance, BET took to Twitter to throw shade at Madonna for her tribute.

“Yeah, we saw that,” read a teaser for the BET Awards, which was eventually removed from the social media site. “Don’t worry. We got you.”

Questlove took to Twitter himself to defend Madonna’s tribute, which he introduced.

“In the upcoming award season for ’17 there will be a gang of tributes. Naturally there will be folded arms & shade thrown because the Purple Standard is hard boots to fill & a lot of us don’t wanna come [to] grips [with] the fact that Prince – (an on the surface) face of health & invincible agelessness [succumbed] to something so… friggin basic.”

Prince was 57 when he was found dead at his Paisley Park compound in Chanhassen, Minnesota, on April 21. (Last week, the Midwest Medical Examiner’s Office released a press release revealing the singer died of an accidental opioid overdose after self-administering the painkiller fentanyl.)

The day after his death, PEOPLE spoke to Sheila E. – a former flame, longtime friend and frequent collaborator – who shared what she’ll miss most about Prince: “His music. Everyone fell in love with his music. There are not a lot of people that knew him personally; they didn’t know him … but they got to know him because of his music. That’s his legacy.”

The 2016 BET Awards will air live from L.A. at 8 p.m. ET on BET.

Related Articles