When Queen Latifah takes the stage at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas to host the American Music Awards on Monday (May 25), she’ll become the first person ever to have solo-hosted both the Grammys and the AMAs. She hosted the Grammys in 2005.
If you add in performers who solo-hosted the Grammys and co-hosted the AMAs, you pick up two more names – Kenny Rogers and LL Cool J.
The personable Queen Latifah has solo-hosted several other shows: the BET Awards in 2010, the NAACP Image Awards in 2023-24 and the Kennedy Center Honors in 2024.
Latifah is also set to be a coach on The Voice this fall, alongside Adam Levine, Kelly Clarkson and Riley Green. “All roads lead back to music for me,” she told Billboard on Tuesday (May 19). “Everything I’ve done in my career, it all started with music.”
The 52nd American Music Awards are set to air live coast-to-coast on Memorial Day, Monday, May 25 at 8 p.m. ET/5 p.m. PT on CBS and Paramount+.
Taylor Swift is this year’s most nominated artist with eight nods, followed by Morgan Wallen, Olivia Dean, Sabrina Carpenter and sombr with seven each.
Billy Idol will receive this year’s lifetime achievement award and deliver his first-ever AMAs performance. Karol G will perform and receive the international artist award of excellence. Other performers include Hootie & the Blowfish, KATSEYE, Keith Urban, Maluma, New Kids on the Block, Riley Green, sombr, Teddy Swims, Teyana Taylor, The Pussycat Dolls + Busta Rhymes and Twenty One Pilots.
This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.
The American Music Awards are produced by Dick Clark Productions, which is owned by Penske Media Eldridge, a joint venture between Eldridge Industries and Billboard parent company Penske Media.
What makes a good host? I’ve seen big singers, big names, who just don’t have it. It’s a particular skill. What does it take?
I think you just have to be able to relate to an audience. I know a lot of really huge stars who are pretty camera-shy. They can be still quite shy when it comes to relating to people, and definitely a room full of people. I think you have to be able to allow for a certain amount of spontaneity, because it’s live and you don’t know what might happen. So you sort of have to feel comfortable at the helm. Rehearsal — you gotta be able to read and rehearse. To me, I feel much more comfortable when I know everything that’s gonna happen, and I feel like I’ve changed the words that don’t sound like things that would come out of my mouth and made it my own. I think it’s important for anybody who’s hosting the show to sort of make it theirs, so that they feel comfortable, and it just flows.
Who are some hosts, not just of the AMAs or the Grammys, but of all shows over your lifetime where you thought, “Boy, they’re good.“
I think Jamie Foxx is a great host. I’ve seen him host, and I thought he was a great host because he’s funny, and he can sing, he can play instruments, so he could break into song at any moment, but he’s also a comedian, so he’s funny, and he’s an Oscar[-winning] actor, so he knows how to play and just fall into a role. Just something about his little grin makes you think there’s always something coming, something is about to happen, so I think he was always a great host. We can take it way back into other people, but he’s the one that comes right to mind.
Who are some other people?
How far back are we going?
Well, on the Oscars, you have Bob Hope and Johnny Carson and Billy Crystal.
Billy Crystal – I thought was an amazing host. Yes, and I think Robin Williams [was] a great host, and Whoopi Goldberg, if we’re going there, I think those three are killer combination of hosts. But yeah, Billy Crystal, top-notch, top quality. Just all the quick-witted, funny things.
Do you know most of the artists performing on the AMAs? I imagine some of the newer people, like sombr and Teddy Swims, you’re probably meeting for the first time.
I met sombr at the Grammys, because I was already a fan, and I was already plugging in. “Back to Friends,” that was like my song, because that song really sounds like something of my era, that I would have grown up on those harmonies, and the rhythm of it. It’s not such a new style that you can’t really grasp it. It’s just a proper song. He’s great, and just his whole performance style, just going out there and just being himself in just the most amazing way.
How about other artists who are either performing or are nominees this year?
Leon Thomas, I’ve been playing his record a lot, so of course I know him. Karol G, I’ve been a fan of. Taylor Swift, of course, you know. New Kids, come on. You know, we’re talking a lot of people that I’m quite familiar with, and of course Billy Idol, like I just can’t wait to see him. Sabrina Carpenter is great, you know. I’ve gotten to see a lot of these performers perform at other shows, or on SNL or somewhere along the way. So I’m just excited to see them actually under one roof one night to see how they get down in Vegas.
Teyana Taylor is on fire, as you know, with an Oscar nomination, a Grammy nomination, just everything. It occurs to me that you are one of the people who paved the way for her and made her success possible.
Maybe I have seen her so much and so closely that it didn’t even occur to me to say her name, but I play her albums like religiously, like her music goes everywhere I go, and has for years, and everything she does, even if she’s opening up a nail salon in Harlem, she does everything with a certain style. She just did a collab with [Michael] Jordan, she gave me some sneakers, you know, we had the All-Star Game together, we were at a Tom Brown fashion show together.
I’ve been trying to support her, but, like, give her her space at the same time, because being nominated for every single thing in the world on the planet is not easy, and she has done it with such an amazing style and flair, and making it her own, which she always does, that I’ve just gotten to enjoy watching it all happen for her. But she knows I’m here if she ever needs to talk. All I’ve told her to do is just enjoy the moment, because this is not something that happens very often, so make sure you stop to enjoy this. Make sure you stop to just enjoy this thing, and not let it just all be the grind of what it is when it all happens, because it can be. It’s quite a grind, but it’s also a grind that you not might not see very often. You [should] actually have a party at one of these parties you’re at, enjoy it.
You’re doing The Voice this year. Have you started taping those episodes?
No, we haven’t started taping, but that’s going to come pretty soon. So the gears are grinding, the gears are grinding. I’m so elated about that, to be able to hear, I mean, I’m going to be like, ‘turn a chair’ and work with a bunch of great people, and be in one of my most comfortable spaces, which is around music. Leave me in music, and all roads lead back to music for me. Everything I’ve done in my career, it all started with music, and music goes along with me through everything that I do. I find some song that I can put on that can connect me to that thing or the feelings I may have at that moment. So, it all comes back to music. So, I’m really happy for it to come back to music on this one, and just the real music, like what this is, people’s dreams, you know, people have a dream, they have a gift, and they want to share it, and it’s always exciting to hear that, and to help it come to fruition, because people help me, and so I’ve always been one to want to help do the same thing.
OK, this has been great. You gave me just what I need. I thank you for taking the time.
What you got back there on those shelves?
CDs, from days of yore.
Oh man, I thought I had a lot of CDs. You got me beat.
