Rihanna performed her single “Diamonds (in the Sky)” at the 2013 AMA Video Music Awards on Nov. 24, 2013. Its the night when the 25-year-old Barbadian superstar was honored with the first ever AMA Icon Award.
Bill Maher introduced Rihanna to the stage, where she was recognized as the best selling digital artist of all time and biggest artist on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
Rihanna performed wearing an all-black ensemble and a choker made of pearls. She received a standing ovation from the audience after her performance.
Jay Z congratulated the singer in a video message before Rihanna’s mother Monica Fenty came onstage to present the award to her daughter.
Mother’s speech
“First of all I’d liked to say all praises and honor be to God Almighty through Jesus. Rihanna I’m so proud of you tonight. I know the journey in your career has not always been an easy one but tonight I applaud and admire you for being so strong and so positive and so humble and so focused. Its amazing how you always manage to take good from all your experiences. I’m so blessed to be a part of this historic moment. I just want to say how proud I am to present to you the first ever AMA iconic award.”
Rihanna Speech
“I’ll just start by saying, twenty years ago is when I really started to make your life a living hell with my annoying little husky man voice you called it. I mean just disrupting the entire neighborhood. I annoyed every one of my neighbors and ten years later I was blessed enough to meet Evan and Carl and I was working with them. I auditioned for them at fifteen – my mom came and she was looking at us. You’re in school uniform and you still have some stuff to finish before you can think about doing this and I literally begged and pleaded and she finally said yes and I thank you for that yes because that was the beginning of it all. Shortly after that, my demo was done and I met Jay Z and Jay Brown and those are the guys who really believed in me. So many people I have to thank for the success of keeping me sane, my friends, my brothers, my glam team, my fans I love you so much, you keep me driven. You keep this thing special. I can’t believe I’m 25 years old and I’m holding an icon award. I thank you and I’m grateful. I’m only as good as my team so I love you guys so much. Thank you!”
Dressed in a an elegant black gown and her hair pinned down, she stormed through the song giving a show-stopping performance.
“The first-ever Icon Award was created to honor an artist whose body of work has made a profound influence over pop music on a global level,” show producer Larry Klein told the LA Times.
“Rihanna’s iconic and innovative sound has enabled her to become one of the most influential and bestselling artists of all time.”
Mary J Blige also spoke about Rihanna receiving the honor to Capital FM. “She deserves that because, as an icon, she is super on point,” she said.
“Like we look at her, people look at her and they admire her style, they admire her swag and who she is,” she added. “So she absolutely deserves that right now.”
