2026 BET Awards Reveal Album Of The Year Nominees: Clipse, Cardi B & More

BY Gabriel Bras Nevares
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2026 BET Awards Album Of The Year Nominees
Jun 18, 2022; Washington, DC, USA; Grammy award-winning artist Pharrell Williams is joined by guest artists The Clipse and Justin Timberlake during his performance at the Sun Stage during the Something in the Water festival on Saturday, June 18, 2022 in Washington, DC. Mandatory Credit: Jarrad Henderson-USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
The 2026 BET Awards noms for Album Of The Year include Clipse, Cardi B, Tyler, The Creator, Wale, Mariah The Scientist, J. Cole, and more.

The 2026 BET Awards will go down on Saturday, June 28, and Druski will host a hopefully wonderful ceremony to celebrate the newly announced nominees. One of the most talked-about categories here, as usual, is the Album Of The Year award. This year, we have some strong competition from Cardi B, Clipse, Leon Thomas, and many more.

But there are also new awards to talk about for this ceremony, which follow the sad gutting of the BET Hip Hop Awards. First, there's the Fashion Vanguard Award, which recognized trailblazing storytelling through style that achieves significant cultural impact and influence. Moreover, the nominees are Bad Bunny, Doechii, Beyoncé, Colman Domingo, A$AP Rocky, Zendaya, Teyana Taylor, Cardi B, Rihanna.

There's also the Pulse Award for Internet content that pushes Black culture forward. Nominees are the R&B Money podcast, Joe And Jada, Charlamagne Tha God, the 85 South Show, Don Lemon, Baby This Is Keke Palmer, Druski, On The Radar, and It Is What It Is.

""All of our nominees represent the very best of Black culture across music, film, sports, and beyond," Connie Orlando, BET's executive vice president of specials and music strategy and programming, reportedly expressed. "And with the introduction of the Fashion Vanguard Award and the Pulse Award, we’re proud to honor even more of the ways our culture continues to show up and evolve."

BET Awards' Album Of The Year Nominees

Back to the Album Of The Year nominees at the 2026 BET Awards, though, these include Let God Sort Em Out by Clipse, AM I THE DRAMA? by Cardi B, and the MUTT deluxe from Leon Thomas, HEEL.

Meanwhile, other nominations went to Tyler, The Creator for DON'T TAP THE GLASS, Mariah The Scientist for HEARTS SOLD SEPARATELY, Wale for everything is a lot., J. Cole for The Fall-Off, and Bruno Mars for The Romantic.

We will see who takes the award home and what other celebrities will walk away with new accolades on Saturday, June 28. Some of the other big categories include Best New Artist, male and female equivalents for both Pop/R&B and Hip-Hop, and the Viewer's Choice award. The BET Awards always cause a stir, and we're excited to see what wins.

About The Author
Gabriel Bras Nevares is a staff writer for HotNewHipHop. He joined HNHH while completing his B.A. in Journalism & Mass Communication at The George Washington University in the summer of 2022. Born and raised in San Juan, Puerto Rico, Gabriel treasures the crossover between his native reggaetón and hip-hop news coverage, such as his review for Bad Bunny’s hometown concert in 2024. But more specifically, he digs for the deeper side of hip-hop conversations, whether that’s the “death” of the genre in 2023, the lyrical and parasocial intricacies of the Kendrick Lamar and Drake battle, or the many moving parts of the Young Thug and YSL RICO case. Beyond engaging and breaking news coverage, Gabriel makes the most out of his concert obsessions, reviewing and recapping festivals like Rolling Loud Miami and Camp Flog Gnaw. He’s also developed a strong editorial voice through album reviews, think-pieces, and interviews with some of the genre’s brightest upstarts and most enduring obscured gems like Homeboy Sandman, Bktherula, Bas, and Devin Malik.

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