“Be a diva, be a boss, be anything you want to be but be iconic while you’re doing it.” - Mariah Carey, 2025

There is no amount of icon awards or honours that can express just how important Mariah Carey’s contribution to music over the last 35 years has been, but last night’s BET Awards did their best to give Mimi the flowers she deserves and you can tell she really was happy to be there. 

 

If you know Mariah, especially at award shows, you’d know that she is generally more reserved and concerned about her lighting darling (rightfully so of course). Last night was a diva in full control, from the performance to the awards speech. 

 

Mimi gave her first ever performance of her new single “Type Dangerous” which is the lead from her upcoming 16th studio album. It was everything you would expect from Mariah on stage. The hair was giving and she looks so f*king good it’s like a 2005 time warp. Any time Mariah pulls out the pin-straight hair and gold mini-dress we know she’s up to no good (in the best way). Anderson. Paak, the song’s co-producer and Mimi’s rumoured lover, was on the drums radiating pure joy and charisma as he smiled at his lady on the stage. In classic MC fashion, her high heels were so high that she could barely walk but do we even need her to? She’s given us so many years of the most insane vocal performances that at this point, the fact that she still shows up and looks great while doing so is more than enough. That gold mini ensemble? I just about screamed when the dancers revealed it underneath the fabulous coat. Sickening! 

 

The performance ends with an outro of her classic “It’s Like That” before gold butterfly confetti came down from the ceiling. My petition to change the term “give them their flowers” to “give them their butterflies” starts now – well, at least in Mariah’s case. 

 

Before last night, Mariah had never won a BET Award. That’s a surprising fact given that she has performed on the show FOUR times over the years, appeared as a presenter countless others, and has had tons of big hits on the network. There’s an entire conversation to be had about the disproportionate amount of accolades that Mariah has for the amount of success she has accomplished in her career and she’s still to this day getting snubbed (I’m talking to YOU Rock & Roll Hall of Fame). 

 

For one reason or another she never earned an honour from BET, but last night all of that changed when she finally received the Ultimate Icon award along with Jamie Foxx, Snoop Dogg and Kirk Franklin. Snoop even mentions Mariah in his speech in the most hilarious way: only he can say “when I was in the county jail in 1990, ‘Vision of Love’ would come on Saturday mornings, and we would race to the TV to see you” – and goes on to say how she has always treated him like family. From the penitentiary to the recording studio, Mariah and Snoop have always been a great duo. Never did I think I’d hear “Vision of Love” being referred to as a prison anthem of strength, but it is Mariah, from the corporate office to the jail cell, she really is the people’s diva. 

 

 

The most important moment for Mariah last night was when frequent collaborator Busta Rhymes presented Mimi with the honour and even gave a personal testimony to his experience working with our diva on their hit “I Know What You Want” that the diva herself claimed made her a “lil emotional lil emotional”. Busta talks about Mariah’s influence particularly when it comes to the hip-Hop and [op collaboration that she helped make a standard in music back in the day – something that I have always believed to be true as well. She literally did it during her performance last night when she brought out rapper Rakim whom she samples in “Type Dangerous”. Mimi invented the formula and she’s sticking to it! Busta demanded the audience give the upmost attention to her upon her entry as one should when royalty is about to arrive and then like a true songbird, she emerged. Mimi said it best herself, “if you’re gonna get one you might as well start with the icon award”. I know that’s right. 

 

Complete with all the “Mariah-isms” and personality that we love so much, Mariah accepted the honour making sure to point out just how important it was that it was coming from BET, her people, her culture. Receiving this award in 2025 is a testament that the shift in sound she made all those years ago paid off because now she is being honoured by her community in a way she never was going to be if she had she stayed under the control of her ex-husband Tommy Mottola. One of the biggest moments in Mariah’s career was in 1997 when she released “Honey” and made the major pivot from primarily Adult Contemporary Pop music to R&B. It was a shift that caused a lot of drama for her at the time, something that she put best herself during her acceptance speech: “it’s all in my book anyway”, lol. Now, 28 years after she released the single “Outside”, talking about her struggles growing up biracial, Mariah is home and is exactly where she wants to be.