Lauryn Hill to Receive Living Legend Icon Award at BET Awards

BET will honor Ms. Lauryn Hill with its Living Legend Icon Award this month.

The network announced Thursday that Hill will receive the award during the 2026 BET Awards. The show is scheduled to air June 28 from the Peacock Theater in Los Angeles, with Druski as host.

BET said the award honors artists who “mastered their craft and never let go of the culture.” The line could drift into award-show excess. For Hill, it lands close to the record.

Hill first became a generational voice with the Fugees, whose 1996 album “The Score” moved across hip-hop, soul, reggae and pop without sounding designed for any one lane. Two years later, “The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill” made her a solo force on terms almost no other artist could have demanded at the time.

Released in 1998, “The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill” blended rap, soul, gospel, reggae, live instrumentation and diaristic writing into a record that felt both intimate and public. It explored love, faith, motherhood, self-worth and Black womanhood. The album sold more than 10 million copies and became a model for artists who wanted reach without softening their point of view.

Connie Orlando, BET’s executive vice president of specials, music programming and music strategy, said Hill “never chased the moment; she has shaped it.”

“Her artistry redefined what was possible in our music and gave a generation permission to be fearless, spiritual, and free,” Orlando said in a statement.

The honor follows a rare televised appearance from Hill. In February, she returned to the Grammy stage for an In Memoriam tribute honoring D’Angelo and Roberta Flack, opening with “Nothing Even Matters” before moving through a broader tribute to two artists whose work helped shape the vocabulary of soul and R&B.

Hill has often been discussed through absence — the long wait for another studio album, the uneven touring history, the distance between public demand and the artist’s own terms. But the BET honor is a reminder that her legacy has never depended strictly on output.

It is defined by what that output changed.

“The Score” remains one of the defining albums of the 1990s. “The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill” remains a landmark in modern Black music. Nearly three decades later, Hill’s influence is still heard in artists moving between rap and melody, confession and critique, spirituality and edge.

That makes the Living Legend Icon Award less a coronation than a formal acknowledgment of what the music already settled.

Peabo Bryson, Voice Behind 'A Whole New World,' Dies at 75 After Stroke

Peabo Bryson appears in an undated photo posted to his official Facebook page. Bryson, the two-time Grammy-winning R&B singer known for “Beauty and the Beast,” “A Whole New World (Aladdin’s Theme)” and decades of romantic ballads, died Tuesday at 75, days after suffering a stroke. (Credit: Peabo Bryson/Facebook)

Peabo Bryson, the two-time Grammy-winning R&B balladeer whose voice moved from soul radio to Disney’s early 1990s renaissance without losing its foundation, died Tuesday evening, days after suffering a stroke. He was 75.

His family confirmed his death in a statement, saying it found comfort in knowing “how deeply Peabo was loved and how many lives were touched by his voice and his generous spirit.”

The announcement came after Bryson’s representative said Sunday that the singer had suffered a stroke and was under medical care. At the time, his family asked for privacy as he received treatment.

Bryson’s voice became part of pop memory through two of the most recognizable movie duets of the early 1990s. He won Grammys for “Beauty and the Beast,” performed with Celine Dion, and “A Whole New World (Aladdin’s Theme),” performed with Regina Belle. Both songs won best pop performance by a duo or group with vocal.

Those records made him part of childhood for millions. But R&B audiences knew Bryson long before animated films carried his voice into the pop mainstream.

Born Robert L. Bryson in Greenville, South Carolina, Bryson came through the Southern music circuit before becoming one of contemporary R&B’s premier male vocalists. His official biography says he got his start as lead singer of Al Freeman & The Upsetters and Moses Dillard & The Tex-Town Display before releasing his 1976 debut LP, “Peabo,” on Atlanta’s Bullet/Bang label.

His catalog includes “Feel the Fire,” “I’m So Into You,” “If Ever You’re in My Arms Again,” “Can You Stop the Rain” and “Tonight, I Celebrate My Love,” his duet with Roberta Flack.

Roc Nation Partners With Target and D’Ussé for Massive 'Reasonable Doubt' 30th-Anniversary Campaign

Target is celebrating the 30th anniversary of Jay-Z's "Reasonable Doubt" with an exclusive white-vinyl edition. The two-LP set arrives nationwide June 26, anchoring a broader retail and luxury campaign for the 1996 hip-hop classic.

Jay-Z’s “Reasonable Doubt” is entering its 30th anniversary year in a form that says almost as much about his career as the album itself.

Target is listing an exclusive two-LP edition of the 1996 debut for $40, with a June 26 street date. Roc Nation’s official store lists a white vinyl Target exclusive shipping around the same date, while the Jaÿ-Z 30 site lists “Reasonable Doubt” as a two-LP vinyl album tied to Roc-A-Fella Records and the album’s original 1996 release.

The Target listing keeps the original album sequence and adds “Can’t Knock the Hustle (Fool’s Paradise Remix)” featuring Meli’sa Morgan to Side D. The listing also identifies the record label as S Carter Enterprises LLC/Roc Nation Distribution.

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The rollout gives “Reasonable Doubt” a retail footprint far removed from the conditions that produced it. The album arrived June 25, 1996, through Roc-A-Fella Records, after Carter and his partners built their own route around an industry that had not made him a priority.

In a GQ interview published this year, Carter said the fact that Roc-A-Fella released the album at all was “proof enough of concept.” He also said the album moved differently at street level than it did on paper: “On the streets we were platinum.”

That history is what makes the anniversary campaign more than a standard reissue. “Reasonable Doubt” was not a blockbuster on arrival. It was a controlled, expensive-sounding debut about appetite, discipline, guilt, leverage and survival, delivered by a rapper who already sounded as if he was thinking several exits ahead.

The anniversary is also being extended beyond vinyl. D’Ussé Cognac, the brand founded by Shawn “Jay-Z” Carter and created at Chateau de Cognac, is marking Jaÿ-Z 30 with a limited-edition VSOP collector’s box set, a Code30 cocktail and activations connected to the Roots Picnic, Carter’s July residency at Yankee Stadium and regional events in cities including Atlanta, Houston, Chicago, Washington, New York and Philadelphia.

“Mr. Shawn Carter’s codes of ambition, craftsmanship, and excellence are woven into the DNA of D’Ussé, and Jaÿ-Z 30 is a powerful reflection of that legacy,” Gigi DaDan, general manager of D’Ussé, said in the company’s announcement.

D’Ussé Cognac’s limited-edition Jaÿ-Z 30 VSOP collector’s box set and the Code30 signature cocktail, part of a nationwide campaign celebrating the 30th anniversary of Jay-Z's “Reasonable Doubt.”

The quote is brand language, but the larger picture is harder to dismiss. “Reasonable Doubt” has become a heritage object — vinyl, commemorative packaging, cocktails, stadium dates, retail placement — without losing the tension that made it matter in the first place.

The album was built around a man studying the distance between risk and ownership. Thirty years later, the anniversary rollout finds that same record moving through the institutions Jay-Z spent his career learning how to enter, use and, when possible, control.