Rihanna and her mother took center stage at the American Music Awards as the singer received the first Icon Award.
Monica Fenty presented her pop star daughter with the award midway through Sunday night’s show at the Nokia Theatre in Los Angeles.
“Can we talk about how cute Rihanna’s mom is?” Justin Timberlake asked while accepting one of his three awards, before affecting a Caribbean accent. “She’s so proud of the Icon. I am too, Rihanna, I love you.”
Fenty told Rihanna how proud she was of her daughter’s success, saying, “I know the journey in your career has not always been an easy one.”
“Just about 20 years ago is when I really started making your life a living hell with my annoying little husky man voice, you would call it,” Rihanna said. “And I mean just disrupting the entire neighborhood. Westbury Road, Barbados, they could tell you that’s the truth. I annoyed every one of my neighbors.”
Rihanna was one of the night’s early competitive winners as well. She took favorite soul/R&B female artist. Timberlake won soul/R&B album, soul/R&B male artist and pop/rock male artist and was tied with Taylor Swift, who won favorite country female artist and country album of the year for “Red.”
“‘Red’ is very different than any album I’ve made before and the reason I was able to do that was because of the fans,” Swift said. “I cannot believe what you’ve done in the last year. This album came out almost exactly a year ago and the fact that 6 million of you went out and bought it is crazy.”
Nickelodeon star Ariana Grande was named favorite new artist, Florida Georgia Line won single of the year for “Cruise” with Nelly, and Macklemore & Ryan Lewis used their rap/hip-hop album acceptance speech to send a message of tolerance.
Ben Haggerty, the rapper known as Macklemore, accepted the award for favorite rap/hip-hop album, then quoted Martin Luther King Jr. in a live satellite feed from the rap group’s latest tour stop.
“Due to the fact that we are in Florida tonight accepting this award I want to acknowledge Trayvon Martin and the hundreds and hundreds of kids each year that are dying due to racial profiling and the violence that follows it,” he said. “This is really happening. These are our friends, our neighbors, our peers and our fans, and it’s time that we look out for the youth and fight against racism and the laws that protect it.”
Florida became a focal point after Martin’s killer was freed under the state’s stand your ground law. It was the first win of the night for Macklemore and Lewis, whose album “The Heist” has been an unexpected hit and made them the AMA’s top nominees with six.
Katy Perry opened the show looking like a princess out of a classic Japanese painting. Dressed in a traditional Japanese dress, Perry’s show-starting performance of “Unconditionally” included dozens of colorfully clad dancers waved fans, shadow danced in front of rice-paper screens and played the drums.
Perry was the early focal point of the awards show, held at the Nokia Theatre in Los Angeles, arriving on the red carpet in a black strapless dress to screams from hundreds of fans. She said before the show she wanted to up her game, given the chance to open, and the whirling stage production was a wash of colors and movements before Perry disappeared in a puff of smoke.
One Direction was at times drowned out by screams during an understated performance of “Story of My Life.” The decibel level was that way from the moment the British boy band arrived on the carpet, all smiles and dapper suits. Harry Styles stopped to take a picture with three fans.
Timberlake strapped on an acoustic guitar and played a soulfully raucous version of “Drink You Away.” Macklemore crowd surfed on “Can’t Hold Us.” Jennifer Lopez absolutely nailed the elaborate dance numbers during her tribute to Salsa queen Celia Cruz, taking two dozen dancers through their paces while wearing a shimmering silver dress.
She winked at the crowd as she finished the number, the dancers sprawled around her on the floor.
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