For 25 years, the BET Awards stage has functioned as something more than an awards show. It’s a celebration of our culture’s impact on everything from music to film and beyond.

While other ceremonies treat performances as breaks between categories, BET has always understood that the music is the show. The stage has hosted reunions decades in the making, tributes delivered through real grief, and statements about the state of the country that landed harder than anything said at a podium. 

It's where Michael Jackson honored his idol just years before his own passing, where Beyoncé turned the awards into a full Formation Tour stop, and where Kendrick Lamar climbed on top of a police car and gave a generation something to chant in the streets. None of it was safe, and none of it was filler. 

That's the thing about BET, the network has never treated performance time as an afterthought, and the results speak for themselves nearly every single year. Ahead of this year's show, here's a look back at five performances that have become a part of the pop culture lexicon. Let's go!

Michael Jackson Presents James Brown with Lifetime Achievement Award

The King of Pop made a rare surprise appearance to present his idol, James Brown, with the Lifetime Achievement Award, then danced alongside him on live television. Jackson got visibly emotional while wrapping Brown's signature cape around his shoulders, and the two, who had shared a stage only once before, decades earlier, gave the world a moment that still circulates online more than 20 years later.

Beyoncé feat. Kendrick Lamar - "Freedom"

In a surprise opener nobody saw coming, Beyoncé recreated her Formation World Tour's water-stage setup live at the Microsoft Theater, stomping through "Freedom" barefoot with a full line of dancers before Kendrick Lamar emerged for his dramatic verses. The performance featured a 50-foot-long pool included in her Formation World Tour set, where she and her backup dancers performed barefoot choreography. It remains one of the most replayed opening numbers in the show's history.

Sheila E. Tribute To Prince 

Just two months after Prince's death, his longtime collaborator and friend Sheila E. closed out the entire show with a raw, career-spanning medley of his hits. She performed "Let's Work," "A Love Bizarre," "The Glamorous Life," "America," and more, joined by "Purple Rain" actor Jerome Benton and Prince's ex-wife Mayte Garcia. The set ended with the cast raising a purple guitar to the sky. Epic, to say the least.

Chris Brown's Michael Jackson Tribute

One year after Jackson's death, Chris Brown took the stage for a dance medley built entirely around his idol's biggest hits, nailing the choreography with eerie precision. But it was the ending that made history: Brown started his performance dancing to a medley of Jackson's hits and ended with "Man in the Mirror," getting emotional almost immediately after the song started, eventually breaking down in tears on live television. It became one of the most talked-about award show moments of the decade.

Kendrick Lamar - "Alright"
Kendrick Lamar took the stage in front of a graffiti-covered cop car, delivering an unflinching performance of "Alright" that doubled as a statement on the state of the country. The song would go on to become an anthem of the Black Lives Matter movement, and this performance remains one of the clearest examples of the BET Awards stage being used not just for entertainment, but for something far bigger.