The nominees for the 2023 National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) Image Awards have been revealed, and Nigeria is ably represented.
Nigerian music stars Davido, Tems, Wizkid, Fireboy DML, and BurnaBoy are among the nominees in the Best International Song category of the prestigious award. The award honors and recognizes the grand achievements and advancements of these performers in the world of arts and entertainment over the last year.
In other categories, we have JohnBoyega in the Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Motion Picture category for his outstanding performance in “The Woman King,” Burna Boy in the Outstanding Male Artist category for his “Love, Damini” album, Chinonye Chukwu in the Outstanding Directing in a Motion Picture category for her work in “Till,” Damson Idris in the Outstanding Actor in a Drama Series category for his performance in “Snowfall,” and Akwaeke Emezi in the Outstanding Literary Fiction category for their novel “You Made a Fool of Death with Your Beauty”
President and CEO of the NAACP, DerrickJohnson, said in a statement:
Throughout the past year, we’ve witnessed Black artists showcasing our history and uplifting values of progressive change, while redefining genres and bringing our stories to the forefront of entertainment in so many innovative ways.
Black voices are necessary to continually inspire audiences around the world. We’re proud to once again provide a platform that both elevates and celebrates these voices through the 54th NAACP Image Awards.
Winners will be announced on Saturday, Feb. 25 on BET.
See full list of nominees below:
ENTERTAINER OF THE YEAR
Angela Bassett
Mary J. Blige
Quinta Brunson
Viola Davis
Zendaya
MOTION PICTURE CATEGORIES
OutstandingMotion Picture
A Jazzman’s Blues (Netflix)
Black Panther: Wakanda Forever (Marvel Studios)
Emancipation (Apple TV)
The Woman King (Sony Pictures Releasing)
Till (United Artists Releasing/Orion Pictures)
Outstanding Actor in a Motion Picture
Daniel Kaluuya – Nope (Universal Pictures)
Jonathan Majors – Devotion (Sony Pictures Entertainment)
Joshua Boone – A Jazzman’s Blues (Netflix)
Sterling K. Brown – Honk for Jesus. Save Your Soul (Focus Features)
Will Smith – Emancipation (Apple)
Outstanding Actress in a Motion Picture
Danielle Deadwyler – Till (United Artists Releasing/Orion Pictures)
Keke Palmer – Alice (Vertical Entertainment)
Letitia Wright – Black Panther: Wakanda Forever (Marvel Studios)
Regina Hall – Honk for Jesus. Save Your Soul (Focus Features)
Viola Davis – The Woman King (Sony Pictures Releasing)
Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Motion Picture
Aldis Hodge – Black Adam (Warner Bros. Pictures / New Line Cinema)
Cliff “Method Man” Smith – On The Come Up (Paramount Pictures)
Jalyn Hall – Till (United Artists Releasing/Orion Pictures)
John Boyega – The Woman King (Sony Pictures Releasing)
Tenoch Huerta – Black Panther: Wakanda Forever (Marvel Studios)
Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Motion Picture
Angela Bassett – Black Panther: Wakanda Forever (Marvel Studios)
Danai Gurira – Black Panther: Wakanda Forever (Marvel Studios)
Janelle Monáe – Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery (Netflix)
Lashana Lynch – The Woman King (Sony Pictures Releasing)
Lupita Nyong’o – Black Panther: Wakanda Forever (Marvel Studios)
Outstanding Independent Motion Picture
Breaking (Bleecker Street)
Causeway (Apple TV)
Mr. Malcolm’s List (Bleecker Street)
Remember Me: The Mahalia Jackson Story (Hulu)
The Inspection (A24)
Outstanding International Motion Picture
Athena (Netflix)
Bantú Mama (ARRAY)
Broker (NEON)
Learn to Swim (ARRAY)
The Silent Twins (Focus Features)
Outstanding Breakthrough Performance in a Motion Picture
Jalyn Hall – Till (United Artists Releasing/Orion Pictures)
Joshua Boone – A Jazzman’s Blues (Netflix)
Ledisi – Remember Me: The Mahalia Jackson Story (Hulu)
Y’lan Noel – A Lot of Nothing (RLJE)
Yola – Elvis (Warner Bros. Pictures)
Outstanding Ensemble Cast in a Motion Picture
A Jazzman’s Blues (Netflix)
Black Panther: Wakanda Forever (Marvel Studios)
Emancipation (Apple TV)
The Woman King (Sony Pictures Entertainment)
Till (United Artists Releasing/Orion Pictures)
Outstanding Animated Motion Picture
DC League of Super-Pets (Warner Bros. Pictures / WAG / DC)
Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio (Netflix)
Puss in Boots: The Last Wish (Universal Pictures)
Turning Red (Pixar Animation Studios)
Wendell & Wild (Netflix)
Outstanding Character Voice-Over Performance – Motion Picture
Angela Bassett – Wendell & Wild (Netflix)
Keke Palmer – Lightyear (Walt Disney Studios)
Kevin Hart – DC League of Super-Pets (Warner Bros. Pictures / WAG / DC)
Lyric Ross – Wendell & Wild (Netflix)
Taraji P. Henson – Minions: The Rise of Gru (Universal Pictures)
Outstanding Short-Form (Live Action)
Dear Mama… (Film Independent)
Fannie (Chromatic Black)
Fathead (University of Southern California)
Incomplete (20th Century Digital, Hulu)
Pens & Pencils (Wavelength Productions/Black TV & Film Collective)
Outstanding Short-Form (Animated)
I Knew Superman (Houghtonville Animation)
More Than I Want To Remember (MTV Entertainment Studios)
Supercilious (York Cinemas)
The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse (Apple Studios)
Gina Prince-Bythewood – Women of the Movement – “Mother and Son” (ABC)
Hanelle Culpepper – The Last Days of Ptolemy Grey – “Sensia” (Apple TV+)
Kasi Lemmons – Women of the Movement – “Episode 106” (ABC)
Outstanding Directing in a Television Movie or Special
Anton Cropper – Fantasy Football (Paramount+)
Marta Cunningham – 61st Street (AMC)
Sujata Day – Definition Please (Netflix)
Tailiah Breon – Kirk Franklin’s The Night Before Christmas (Lifetime)
Tine Fields – Soul of a Nation: Screen Queens Rising (ABC)
Outstanding Directing in a Motion Picture
Antoine Fuqua – Emancipation (Apple)
Chinonye Chukwu – Till (United Artists Releasing/Orion Pictures)
Gina Prince-Bythewood – The Woman King (Sony Pictures Releasing)
Kasi Lemmons – I Wanna Dance With Somebody (Sony Pictures Releasing)
Ryan Coogler – Black Panther: Wakanda Forever (Marvel Studios)
Outstanding Directing in a Documentary (Television or Motion Picture)
Nadia Hallgren – Civil (Netflix)
Reginald Hudlin – Sidney (Apple TV+)
Sacha Jenkins – Everything’s Gonna Be All White (Showtime)
Sacha Jenkins – Louis Armstrong’s Black & Blues (Apple TV+)
Kamau Bell – We Need to Talk About Cosby (Showtime)
LITERARY CATEGORIES
Outstanding Literary Work – Fiction
Africa Risen: A New Era of Speculative Fiction – Sheree Renée Thomas (Macmillan)
Light Skin Gone to Waste – Toni Ann Johnson (University of Georgia Press)
Take My Hand – Dolen Perkins-Valdez (Penguin Random House)
The Keeper – Tananarive Due, Steven Barnes (Abrams Books)
You Made a Fool of Death with Your Beauty – Akwaeke Emezi (Simon & Schuster)
Outstanding Literary Work – Nonfiction
Finding Me – Viola Davis (HarperCollins Publishers)
Grace: President Obama and Ten Days in the Battle for America – Cody Keenan (HarperCollins Publishers)
Requiem for the Massacre – RJ Young (Counterpoint)
Under the Skin – Linda Villarosa (Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group)
Who’s Black and Why? A Hidden Chapter from the Eighteenth-Century Invention of Race – Henry Louis Gates, Andrew S. Curran (The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press)
Outstanding Literary Work – Debut Author
America Made Me a Black Man – Boyah Farah (HarperCollins Publishers)
Illustrated Black History: Honoring the Iconic and the Unseen – George McCalman (HarperCollins)
Marriage Be Hard – Kevin Fredericks, Melissa Fredericks (Penguin Random House)
Truth’s Table: Black Women’s Musings on Life, Love, and Liberation – Ekemini Uwan, Christina Edmondson, Michelle Higgins (Penguin Random House Convergent Imprint)
What the Fireflies Knew – Kai Harris (Penguin Random House)
Outstanding Literary Work – Biography/Autobiography
A Way Out of No Way: A Memoir of Truth, Transformation, and the New American Story – Raphael G. Warnock (Penguin Random House)
Scenes from My Life – Raphael G. Warnock (Penguin Random House)
The Light We Carry – Michelle Obama (Penguin Random House)
Walking In My Joy: In These Streets – Jenifer Lewis (HarperCollins Publishers)
You’ve Been Chosen – Cynt Marshall (Ballantine Books)
Outstanding Literary Work – Instructional
Black Joy: Stories of Resistance, Resilience, and Restoration – Tracey Lewis-Giggetts (Gallery/Simon and Schuster)
Cooking from the Spirit – Tabitha Brown (William Morrow, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers)
Eat Plants, B*tch: 91 Vegan Recipes That Will Blow Your Meat-Loving Mind – Pinky Cole (Simon & Schuster)
Homecoming: Overcome Fear and Trauma to Reclaim Your Whole Authentic Self – Thema Bryant (Penguin Random House/TarcherPerigee)
The Five Principles: A Revolutionary Path to Health, Inner Wealth, and Knowledge of Self – Khnum Ibomu (Hachette Book Group)
Outstanding Literary Work – Poetry
Best Barbarian – Roger Reeves (Norton)
Bluest Nude – Ama Codjoe (Milkweed Editions)
Concentrate – Courtney Faye Taylor (Graywolf Press)
Muse Found in a Colonized Body – Yesenia Montilla (Four Way Books)
To the Realization of Perfect Helplessness – Robin Coste Lewis (Alfred A. Knopf)
Outstanding Literary Work – Children
Ablaze with Color: A Story of Painter Alma Thomas – Jeanne Walker Harvey, Loveis Wise (HarperCollins)
Black Gold – Laura Obuobi, London Ladd (HarperCollins)
Blue: A History of the Color as Deep as the Sea and as Wide as the Sky – Nana Brew-Hammond, Daniel Minter (Alfred A. Knopf Books for Young Readers)
Talk show host Ebuka Obi-Uchendu recently appeared on the “Menisms Podcast” and shared a surprising story about his beginnings. Ebuka revealed that he was actually a contestant on the very first season of Big Brother Nigeria way back in 2006! He emphasised that he never went on the show to become famous; it was just something he decided to do.
“I was 23 when I first started Big Brother. We were in the first season of Big Brother Nigeria. It was even called Big Brother ‘Nigeria’ then, not ‘Naija’. Naija wasn’t a thing then and I feel like we were just guinea pigs because nobody knew what the show was going to be like if they were going to watch, what to expect and all that,” he began.
Ebuka’s Big Brother NIgeria poster [Big Brother Wiki]
Ebuka dished on the podcast about how he ended up on Big Brother Nigeria. He saw an ad for the show and, in a spur-of-the-moment decision, decided to audition as a dare from his sister.
He admits that part of the motivation was seeing all the attractive ladies at the audition. But, to be honest, the grand prize money probably didn’t hurt either.
“I didn’t go in to blow, which is what you get now. Now it’s like a path to entertainment for people. Back then the prize was even $100,000 and they still advertised in newspapers because there wasn’t social media then.”
He continued,
“So I saw the ad in the newspaper and it wasn’t something I would have ever done. I was a lawyer then and my sister dared me to do it, so I auditioned, they called me and I saw mad babes and I was like ‘I have to do this’. But the main motivation was the money. I wanted to win the money, go to Yankee and get my master’s. That was the plan I had at the time and there was no entertainment in my path.”
Ebuka went on the podcast to share that even though he auditioned for the money and the pretty faces at the Big Brother Nigeria auditions, he ended up finding his calling in entertainment after the competition ended. In other words, going on the show for a dare turned into a whole new career path for him.
“Of Course, I didn’t win and then everything went left. I had gotten the fame and I wasn’t enjoying being a lawyer and I was kind of broke. And that’s how this started, people kept telling me that I had a great voice and I looked good, so I started going for auditions and then I got my first job with NTA. I started doing this strictly for the money,” he said.
Ebuka gets evicted from Big Brother Nigeria [Big Brother Wiki]
Little did Ebuka know that his dare to audition for Big Brother show would change his life. Even though he originally went on the show for the money and the fun, his time on Big Brother Nigeria launched him into the entertainment industry.
Ebuka has become one of Nigeria’s most popular media personalities and TV hosts. And ironically, the host of the very same reality show that gave him his big break!
Nollywood actress Beverly Naya recently talked to media personality Chude Jideonwo about a tough time in her career. She said that all the negativity and bullying online got to her mental health so much that she considered quitting acting altogether. Naya said she felt like the online bullies were unfairly targeting her.
She said,
“There was this particular blog that literally kept coming for me and always had the most negative things to say about everything that I was in and it felt like a personal attack.”
The actress admitted that the constant online attacks really got to her and even made her think about leaving acting altogether. “I felt like I was being attacked again, like, ‘Why am I always being singled out?’ So it really got to me and it damaged my self-esteem and made me doubt myself and I didn’t want to continue in this industry.”
She recounted a particularly hurtful post that has stayed with her ever since. Narrating how the words broke her down, she said,
“There was a particular post that I can never forget, they said ‘Nollywood can we stop trying to make Beverly Naya happen.’ When I saw it, I was crushed and I cried my eyes out because of that. I was angry because I felt like I worked hard. At the time I wasn’t perfect, I’m still not perfect but I was willing and I was pushing myself and I really felt like I did my best and I was trashed and singled out and irrelevant. I was borderline depressed during that period.”
Beverly Naya is a well-respected Nollywood actress who has starred in many popular films. Some of her most notable movies include “Forgetting June,” a movie that explores moving on from past love, and “The Wedding Party,” a hilarious look at the chaos that can ensue around wedding planning.
She’s also been in romantic comedies like “When Love Happens” and dramas like “Across the Rising Sun.”
Naya’s talents extend beyond acting, and she even won an Africa Magic Viewers’ Choice Award (AMVCA) for Best Documentary for her film “Skin.” This award sheds light on her ability to entertain and also tell important stories.
Music fans! South African singing sensation Tyla is brewing up a potential collaboration with K-pop megastar Lisa from BLACKPINK! The buzz started when Tyla shared a social media clip of them hanging out in the studio, with Lisa listening to Tyla’s debut album, “TYLA.” The caption hinted at a future team-up, saying, “Sweetest gorllll… Definitely a Lisa x Tyla collab down the line.”
In a recent interview with Reuters promoting her new album, Tyla confirmed the exciting news. She revealed they’ve been in talks about creating a song together. “We’ve been speaking about making a song together, so yes, for sure,” Tyla enthusiastically told Reuters. This potential collaboration has music lovers buzzing. With Tyla’s soulful vocals and Lisa’s energetic rapping, the combination promises an explosive track that could dominate the charts. Both artists are known for pushing boundaries and experimenting with new sounds, making this a collaboration with serious potential.
While there’s no official confirmation on the song’s release date or details, Tyla’s confirmation is enough to set the music world on fire. Fans are eagerly waiting for any further developments and can’t wait to see what these two musical powerhouses create together.
Lisa struck out on her own in February, launching her label “LLOYD” after her solo contract with YG Entertainment ended. Lisa and her bandmates have renewed their group contract with YG.
This wouldn’t be Tyla’s first high-profile collaboration. Her debut album already features tracks with American rapper Travis Scott and Nigerian singer Tems. Teaming up with the globally renowned Lisa from BLACKPINK would be a massive step for Tyla, further solidifying her position as a rising star on the international music scene.
With both artists at the top of their game, a Tyla and Lisa collaboration has the potential to be a global chart-topper.