Sarkodie wins Best International Act at BET Awards

Ghana's king of the mic, Sarkodie has won the Best International Act (Africa) at this year's Black Entertainment Television (BET) Awards which came off at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles Sunday night.

The Ghanaian, who was recently crowned the Artiste of the Year at the 2012 Ghana Music Awards, together with the Nigerian artiste Wizkid, were announced joint winners of the awards.

The two beat off competition from Iceprince (Nigeria), Camp Mulla (Kenya), Mokobe (Mali) and Lira (South Africa) to win an award which was once jointly won by Nigerian artistes, D'banj and 2face Idibia.

The award makes the Dangerous rapper, Sarkodie the first Ghanaian to win a BET Award after failed attempts by Kojo Antwi and D-Black.

An elated Sarkodie tweeted after winning the award that "From da streets of TMA str8 2 @BET_Intl .... God has been too good 2 me.. Love ma fans promise we ll go higher just save some love 4 me..."

The BET Awards, the biggest black music awards event, also saw Ghanaian-born-UK-based artiste Sway loose out to Wretch 32 to win the Best International Act (UK). The Unorthodox star also beat Estelle, Labrinth and Emeli Sande to the award.

Other winners on the night included Kanye West and Jay Z, Chris Brown, Drake, Nicki Minaj, Beyonce and Bi Sean.

Chris Brown took home Best R&B Artiste beating Bruno Mars, Miguel, Trey Songz and Usher to the award. The Don't Wake Me Up hit maker also won the Fandamonium Award for the third consecutive time.

Beyonce won Best Female R&B Artiste and Video Director of the Year alongside Alan Ferguson. She however lost out on the Video of the Year to her husband, Jay Z, and Kanye West.

In her acceptance speech, Beyonce said she "fell in love with music by listening to R&B and it's the core of who I am."

There were two memorable moments of this year's awards. The first was an impressive tribute to the late Whitney Houston who died in February this year.

Monica and Brandy put up splendid performance to honour of the late singer who graced the world with her powerful voice. Monica performed I Love the Lord, while Brandy came on stage with a set of backup dancers and performed I'm Your Baby Tonight and I Wanna Dance With Somebody.

Whitney Houston's brother, Gary Houston also took to the stage to give off a performance after which he introduced their mother, Cissy Houston, who sang Bridge Over Troubled Water.

Songstress Mariah Carey in a tribute recounted that "The first time I heard Whitney's voice, I was mesmerized like the rest of the world. Just an unknown, budding singer myself, I was captivated by the power in her range, the richness of her tone and her unique ability to wrap a lyric in emotion."

The second interesting moment at this year's awards was Jay Z interrupting Kanye West during an acceptance speech for the Video of the Year.

In 2009, Kanye West infamously interrupted Taylor Swift's acceptance speech after she won the award for Best Female Video for her song You Belong With Me at the MTV Music Video Awards.

After Kanye and Jay Z were declared winners of the Video of the Year for their The Throne - Otis which also won them Best Group, Jay Z gave his acceptance speech and just as Kanye took over the mic and uttered the words "I wanna thank BET...", Jay Z jokingly interrupted and said "Excuse me Kanye I'mma let you continue but..." This got everyone laughing at the venue.

Maze featuring Frankie Beverly received the Lifetime Achievement Award while Reverend Al Sharpton received the 2012 BET Humanitarian Award.

The 2012 BET Awards which was hosted by actor Samuel L. Jackson also witnessed exciting performances from Chris Brown, Nicki Minaj, Melani Fiona, Usher, Tyga and the Maybach Music Group (MMG) which included Rick Ross.

Detailed list of winners soon.