The 2021 Soul Train Awards hosted its annual celebration at the Apollo Theater in New York on Sunday night celebrating 50 years of soul. The award show that aims to celebrate the best in black culture, music, and entertainment was presented by BET and hosted by Tichina Arnold and Tisha Campbell. This years celebration featured performances by Silk Sonic’s Bruno Mars and Anderson Paak, Ari Lennox, Lucky Daye, Fred Hammond, Tone Stitch, Musiq Soulchild, Ashanti, Leon Bridges, ELHAE, Summer Walker and Maxwell.
R&B goddess Jazmine Sullivan notched two trophies by winning both Best R&B/Soul Female Artist and Album Of The Year for Heaux Tales. The Soulful songstress seemed delightfully surprised as the crowd cheered her on as she took the stage to give her acceptance speech. The ‘Need U Bad’ singer pulled at our emotional heartstrings as she addressed her fans and encouraged them to love themselves no matter what stage of life they are going through when giving her speech.
“I want to say something. I want to be honest with you guys. I feel really uncomfortable being up here in front of people and people kind of seeing me—especially since mama been in during quarantine, baby,” she playfully quipped. “I made a promise to myself that I wouldn’t hide anymore. Usually, if I was feeling not my best I will probably not have shown up, but I didn’t want to do that.” She continued, “I wrote this project for women to love themselves, no matter what stage of life that they’re in. You have to love yourself, especially because society would have us— especially Black women—not love anything about ourselves. I realize I can’t just talk about it, I got to be about it. I love you so much.” Jazmine then humbly thanked every single person in the room, along with her management team, family and friends.
In June, Sullivan won the BET Awards 2021 ‘Album of the Year’ for Heaux Tales. In 2009, she was nominated for Best New Artist at the Soul Train Awards and Best Collaboration in 2017.
