The 2017 BET Awards has announced its honorees for the year with New Edition picking up Lifetime Achievement Award, and Chance The Rapper taking Humanitarian Award.  The Global Good Awards see representation from Africa, including South Africa’s iconic singer, Yvonne Chaka Chaka, and Somalian activist, Ilwad Elman.

BET International proudly salutes Yvonne Chaka Chaka for her ferocious fight for the health and well-being of Africans and people across the world, as she uses her stellar celebrity platform for their cause. Chaka Chaka says that “it all starts with her music.”

She burst onto the South African music scene during the height of apartheid, and her music helped sustain Nelson Mandela, his fellow prisoners and all South Africans through those tumultuous times. Her songs became increasingly personal making her music a movement in itself. She has received dozens of South African music awards including SAMA, KORA, OKTY and Autumn Harvest Award.

Dubbed the Princess of Africa, she has motivated millions and has performed for international luminaries including President Nelson Mandela, President Bill Clinton, Queen Elizabeth, Michael Jackson and more.

BET International proudly salutes human rights activist Ilwad Elman for her unfaltering fight against the extreme violence and abuse plaguing women and children in the decades long war in her native Somalia. The atrocities are committed by all warring parties, authorities and warlords alike.

Yet, despite harassment and threats against her own life and security, she and her mother continue the work of her late father, Elman Ali Ahmed, “the Somali Father of Peace, who was assassinated 20 years ago for his work.

Meanwhile 8 artists have been announced for the BET Awards Viewers’ Choice: Best New Act International Award. They include Skip Marley (Jamaica), Remi (Australia), Ray Vanny (Tanzania), Jorja Smith (UK), Dave (UK), Daniel Caesar (Canada), Change (Korea), Amanda Black (South Africa).

Another African participation this year would include a performance by Wizkid at the BET Experience.