The 2022 award ceremony was held at the Microsoft Theater in Los Angeles. The BET Awards celebrate Black excellence in music, culture and sports.
The talented singer beat Fireboy, Dave from the UK, Dinos from France, Fally Ipupa from Congo, Little Simz from the UK, Ludmilla from Brazil, Major League Djz from South Africa, and Tayc from France.
Receiving the award, Tems urged women and girls to continue on their chosen path, adding that the hard work will soon pay off.
She said: “Thank you so much for this, thank you so much. It’s an honour… I mean, this is my first award show that I’m winning something and I just want to use this as an opportunity to speak to every single young, old, whatever, every single woman watching this, every single girl watching this at home. Where I’m from, things like this don’t happen.”
Tems had earlier at the event won Best Collaboration with Wizkid’s ‘Essence’ featuring Justin Bieber.
Essence was nominated against ‘Every Change I Get’ by DJ Khaled ft Lil baby and Lil Durk; ‘Family Ties’ by Baby Seem ft Kenderick Lamar; ‘Whole Lotta’ by Bia ft Nicki Minaj; ‘Way 2 Sexy’, Drake ft Future and Young Thug, and ‘Kiss me More’ by Doja Cat ft SZA.
Singers Pheelz and Firebox DML performed at the 2022 BET Awards.
Aside from Tems, other Nigerian artistes who have won the Best International Act include 2Baba, D’banj, Ice Prince, Wizkid, Davido and Burna Boy.
