Music and sports intersected at the 31st ESPY Awards when Lil Wayne opened the annual awards show, which celebrates the best moments in sports, with a rendition of his 2008 hit “A Milli.” The rapper took the stage solo to showcase the single, with the celeb-filled audience, including Tiffany Haddish and Mike Tyson, on their feet cheering along with him.
Elsewhere during the ceremony, H.E.R. performed her power ballad “The Journey.” The singer paid tribute to the 30th anniversary of basketball coach Jimmy Valvano’s legendary speech at the first ESPYs in 1993. Valvano, who at the time was suffering from terminal cancer, passed just two months after receiving the inaugural Arthur Ashe Courage and Humanitarian Award.
Basketball player-turned-pop culture star Angel Reese, who recently made a cameo in the music video for Latto’s “Put It On Da Floor Again,” won best breakthrough athlete for leading the Lousiana State University women’s basketball team to victory. Her win marks the second year in a row that the award has gone to a woman and the first time two women have won back-to-back in the breakthrough category.
More artist appearances were woven through the three-hour show. Quavo and Lil Dicky served as presenters while Common narrated a tribute to Chicago White Sox pitcher Liam Hendricks, who overcame Stage 4 non-Hodgkin lymphoma.
Haddish presented the U.S. Women’s National Soccer Team with the Arthur Ashe Award of Courage in recognition of their battle for equal pay. Onstage, she recognized the team for fighting for the “simplest, most essential thing that they deserve.”
Lil Wayne has been on the road with his Welcome to Tha Carter Tour, where he’s been performing at more intimate venues to better engage his fans this spring. He recently told Rolling Stone that he has “so far” to go until he’s satisfied. “The true artists and pioneers, they never retire,” Wayne noted.
He added, “Every time I meet a fan, the first thing they going to tell me is the things that I haven’t accomplished. And I love it, because I be like, ‘You’re right, man. I’m pissed off about that too. I’m trying to get that too, man.’”
