Taylor Swift took home the top prize at the 2023 MTV Video Music Awards for her ‘Anti-Hero’ music video on a night full of surprises. “This is unbelievable. The fact that this is a fan-voted award means so much to me. I can’t believe it was a year ago that I announced the ‘Midnights’ album,” she said in her acceptance speech.
The show, held at the Prudential Center in Newark, New Jersey, was Swift’s from nearly the beginning. The night’s first presenters were none other than NSYNC, who reunited to hand the ‘Best Pop Video’ award to Swift.
The night’s top nominee later returned to the stage to pick up the ‘Song of the Year’ trophy for ‘Anti-Hero’ and also the ‘Best Direction’ award. Her ‘Karma (Remix)’ collaborator, Ice Spice, won ‘Best New Artist’. “Oh my God, this is so cool. I just want to thank my munchkins.”
New music was abundant throughout the show. Host Nicki Minaj performed her latest single, the dreamy ‘Last Time I Saw You’ before jumping into a brand-new tease of a fiery new trap cut from her highly anticipated ‘Pink Friday 2’ album.
As much as Swift dominated, the VMAs centred on music’s global power.
Comedian Tiffany Haddish presented the award for ‘Best Afrobeats’ in the category’s inaugural year, given to Rema and Selena Gomez for their massive hit ‘Calm Down’.
“Africa in the house! Shout out to Fela Kuti, who started ‘Afrobeats’ in the first place and I want to give a big shout out to the next generation of ‘Afrobeats’,” Rema started his acceptance speech. Gomez stood a few feet from the microphone but jumped in when Rema asked her to, telling the crowd: “I want to send all of my love to Nigeria. Thank you.”
Colombian icon Shakira received the Video Vanguard Award. “MTV, thank you for being such a big part of my career since I was only 18 years old,” Shakira said, also thanking her parents and her children, whom she brought to the show. She also took home the award for best collaboration for ‘TQG’, her song with Karol G. The duo gave their acceptance speech entirely in Spanish.
Diddy received the Global Icon Award from Mary J Blige and his daughter, Chance Combs. He is the third recipient of the award, following the ‘Red Hot Chili Peppers’ in 2022 and the ‘Foo Fighters’ in 2021. The legendary rapper also performed at the VMAs for the first time since 2005.
Lil Wayne opened the show with a performance of his new single, ‘Kat Food’. Immediately afterward, Olivia Rodrigo brought her ‘Vampire’ music video set to the stage before launching into her cheeky pop-punk single ‘Get Him Back!’
The ‘Best K-Pop’ award was given to ‘Stray Kids’. Later, Anitta won the ‘Best Latin’ award for the second year in a row, delivering one of the more endearing acceptance speeches of the night: “I want to thank myself because I work so hard!”