LOS ANGELES, June 26 -- The honor Lauryn Hill will receive Sunday at the BET Awards has a name no previous recipient has ever held, because BET created it for her.

The 2026 BET Awards, airing Sunday at 8 p.m. ET/PT from Peacock Theater in Los Angeles, has organized its most historically weighted lineup in years around that central act of recognition. Hill, who in 1999 became the first woman to win five Grammy Awards in a single ceremony and whose debut album "The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill" remains the only hip-hop record to win the Grammy for Album of the Year, will be joined on the same stage by a performer list that reads like a deliberate survey of Black American music across four decades.

Cardi B leads the night's nominations with...