Patti LaBelle, Common, Public Enemy Honored at Black Music Action Coalition Gala 2026 — SkimNews
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- Patti LaBelle received the BMAC Icon Award at the sixth annual Black Music Action Coalition Gala, with Chanté Moore performing 'Love, Need and Want You' and Le'Andria Johnson wading into the audience to duet with LaBelle on 'You Are My Friend.'
- Lee Daniels presented the Icon Award to LaBelle, telling the Beverly Hilton crowd her music helped him overcome addiction: 'When I first heard your music, I was 22 years old. It changed my life, and I knew I wanted to be an artist.'
- Common accepted the Harry Belafonte Change Agent Award, introduced by his mother Dr. Mahalia Hines, and cited Ambassador Andrew Young's question 'What are you willing to die for? Live for that' as a wake-up call to deepen his concerts and conversations with incarcerated individuals.
- Public Enemy received the Social Impact Award from Big Daddy Kane, while Nicole Wyskoarko received the inaugural Sylvia Rhone Visionary Award, presented by Rhone herself.
- The Team's Lee Anderson, Marty Diamond, Lenore Kinder, Kevin Shivers, and Mallory Smith were given the BMAC Founders Award, with the Universal Music Group Global Impact team earning the BMAC 365 Award and Tina Davis taking the Clarence Avant Trailblazer Award.
- BMAC president/CEO Willie 'Prophet' Stiggers ran the evening, hosted by Kenny Burns for a sixth straight year with house band 1500 or Nothin, and LaBelle told the room at 82: 'Music is medicine … especially now that we're going through all these trying times.'
Why it matters: Six years in, BMAC is institutionalizing its recognition with a new Sylvia Rhone Visionary Award and its first Founders cohort, shifting from ad-hoc advocacy toward a formal hall-of-fame apparatus. Lee Daniels's testimony that LaBelle's voice pulled him out of addiction gives the Icon Award an unusually personal, recovery-themed meaning rather than a standard career tribute.
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