On Thursday, news broke that music superstar Mary J. Blige, 51, will receive the Billboard Icon award during the 2022 Billboard Music Awards airing Sunday, May 15, according to People.
The award show will be broadcast live from the MGM Grand Arena in Las Vegas, Billboard reports.
According to Billboard, the recipients of the Icon Award are artists who created a high caliber of work within the music industry and have ranked high on the Billboard charts.
Blige is the 11th singer to have been granted the Icon Award. She follows Neil Diamond, Stevie Wonder, Prince, Jennifer Lopez, Celine Dion, Cher, Janet Jackson, Mariah Carey, Garth Brooks, and P!NK, reports Billboard.
“My career has been such an incredible and unexpected journey that has included many turns into avenues I never could have imagined like acting, producing, launching businesses and now even my own music festival,” Blige said.
“Through it all, I always one way or another gravitated back to my first love, music. To be recognized in this way at this moment, with the Icon Award at the Billboard Music Awards, is an incredible honor and one that I am truly humbled by,” said the 411 hip-hop soul vocalist of the honor.
Blige has enjoyed a critically-acclaimed career that has garnered her 11 Billboard Music Awards, one for album of the year, and she picked up nine trophies for the female R&B/hip-hop artist of the year and female Hot 100 artist, the New York Post reports.
Blige is well-deserving of the icon award and title. In February of this year, she released her 14th album Good Morning Gorgeous and gave a dazzling performance at the 2022 Super Bowl LVI Halftime Show alongside Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg, Eminem, 50 Cent, and Kendrick Lamar. Blige also stars in Starz’s “Power Book II: Ghost” series, according to the Post.