Lionel Richie acquired one of many most prestigious honors on the 2022 American Music Awards: the icon award. Yearly, the noble honor is handed out to artists whose “physique of labor has marked a world affect over the music trade,” in response to an AMAs press launch. Contemplating that Richie amassing the award now makes him the one artist in American Music Awards historical past to be featured on the stage each decade since its 1974 inception, it certain appears he deserves the accolade.
The icon award makes 18 AMAs wins for Richie, and he could not be extra grateful. “I am immensely grateful for a profession that has taken me to locations I by no means imagined that I would go, from arenas worldwide to studio units to the AMA stage,” he stated in a press launch. “I can recall one of many first occasions I obtained to carry out on the AMAs. It was to sing ‘We Are the World’ among the many most iconic musicians of my technology, so it’s surreal to be receiving this recognition 36 years later.”
After his good good friend Smokey Robinson introduced him with the icon award Sunday night time, Richie devoted his acceptance speech to his youngsters — daughters Sofia, 24, and Nicole, 41, and son Miles Richie, 28 — saying, “I need to thank my youngsters and the moms of my youngsters for protecting my youngsters collectively.” He went on to thank his buddies who’ve additionally supported his long-standing profession.
The four-time Grammy winner has offered greater than 125 million albums all through his profession, so there have been loads of songs to select from when Stevie Marvel, Ari Lennox, and Charlie Puth graced the stage Sunday night time to pay tribute to the musical legend. Marvel and Puth took turns performing riffs of a few of Richie’s most iconic hits like “Three Occasions a Girl,” “Straightforward,” “All Evening Lengthy (All Evening),” “Say You, Say Me,” and “Brick Home” by the Commodores. Lennox, Robinson, Muni Lengthy, Jimmie Allen, Yola, Melissa Etheridge, and Dustin Lynch — additionally joined by Richie — then appeared to sing his international charity hit “We Are the World.”
Watch Richie’s acceptance speech and see glimpses of his tribute forward.
