Before there was a blueprint, these two wrote it. The inaugural BET Awards in 2001 needed hosts who could carry the brand-new ceremony with undeniable comedy chops, and Harvey and Cedric brought their barbershop banter straight from the stand-up stage — cracking on R&B beefs and church hats like they were holding court at the cookout. They were invited back in 2002 sharper and more comfortable, setting the template that every host since has followed.

Mo'Nique didn't just host, she claimed the stage. Her 2004 opener, a bold, body-positive rendition of Beyoncé's "Crazy in Love" backed by a crew of curvy dancers, was funny, yes, but it was also a statement. She came back in 2007 with the same sharp tongue and a little more heart, roasting celebrities one minute and hyping up Black women in the crowd the next. Nobody hosted quite like her, and nobody's tried to since. Beyoncé even had to invite her back on stage in 2007. 

Royalty showed up as royalty. Latifah opened the night fully in “Set It Off" mode, reprising her iconic Cleo role for a callback that had the room hollering, then spent the night cycling through eras of her own career — dusting off her signature African hat from her early rap days for good nostalgia. It was a hosting set that doubled as a career retrospective, delivered with the regality only Latifah could bring. 

This is the one that turned a hosting gig into a franchise. Hart's 2011 run was pure quotable chaos — rapid-fire jokes, merciless roasts, and the line "You gon' learn today!" that immediately entered the culture's permanent vocabulary. But the real legacy move was a sketch with Nelly, Bobby Brown, Nick Cannon, and Jermaine Dupri spoofing reality-TV husbands. It was so beloved that BET turned it into an actual scripted series, “Real Husbands of Hollywood,” the following year. Hart became the youngest BET Awards host ever at the time — a record that stood for 15 years.

The “Black-ish” co-stars brought sibling/TV spouse-coded chemistry and full Broadway-level production value. In 2015, they opened with an “Empire” parody with Anderson as a dead-on Lucious Lyon, Ross as a fur-and-leopard-print Cookie — then pivoted into a surprisingly smooth Rihanna medley. By 2016, they'd leveled up into a Hamilton-style rap opener tackling police brutality and the election, with Ross closing out the night channeling Beyoncé's "Formation." Two shows, zero filler. 

Four years running, Taraji made the gig look effortless — which is exactly how you know it wasn't. Her 2021 debut centered Black women with rapid costume changes paying homage to Erykah Badu and Diana Ross; 2022 opened with a Tina Turner tribute that brought the house down; by 2024, she was performing a live, culture-fluent remix of Kendrick Lamar's "Not Like Us" retooled into "It's About Us." Sharp monologues, soulful tributes, perfect comedic timing — she earned the unofficial title of hostess with the mostest.