Tonight, in the middle of an awards show at the Coca-Cola Roxy, seven people from the Atlanta community will be called to the stage and presented with scholarships worth $49,000 in total.
The moment is built into the second annual NXT Awards, presented by Now That’s TV, the independent, Black-owned streaming network that Teleau Belton founded in 2021. The network is using its biggest night of the year to do two things at once: honor the artists who built Atlanta’s sound, and put education money in the hands of seven people building what comes next. Tameka “Tiny” Harris will receive the Icon in Music Award. Five Atlanta artists who died young will be remembered by name. And between the performances, the scholarships will be handed out in front of the cameras.
Seven scholarships, handed out on stage
The scholarships come through a partnership between Now That’s TV and Workforce Career Centers, a career development and workforce education organization led by Marion Skinner, who is known as “The King of Education.” According to the organizers’ announcement, the money is meant for education and career advancement, aimed at community members starting a new chapter in their working lives.
Divided evenly, $49,000 across seven recipients comes to $7,000 apiece. The organizers have not said whether the seven awards are equal, how the recipients were chosen, or who they are. The names will be announced tonight, on stage. That sequencing is the strategy: the scholarship presentation is part of the show, not a press release after it.
Tiny Harris receives the Icon in Music Award
Harris, who came up in the 1990s with the Atlanta R&B group Xscape, will be honored for a career that has run from girl-group harmonies to television and artist development. The award comes with a presentation by the OMG Girlz, the girl group Harris created, a passing of the microphone from one generation of Atlanta women in music to the woman who opened the door for them.
“Growth means more than doing something bigger every year,” Belton said in the announcement. “It means being intentional about what we create, who we recognize and the opportunities we can help make possible.”
“Legends Live Forever” remembers five Atlanta artists
One segment of the show will stop the celebration cold. “Legends Live Forever” is a memorial tribute to Shawty Lo, Trouble, Lil Keed, Young Scooter and Rich Homie Quan, five Atlanta artists whose records shaped the city’s sound and whose lives ended early. Their names will be said in a room built for applause, in front of an audience that grew up on their music. It is the part of the program most likely to quiet the Roxy.
A bigger room, in a quieter October
The show has moved up in scale. This year’s ceremony fills the Coca-Cola Roxy at The Battery Atlanta, a 53,000-square-foot room that holds 3,600 people, and the organizers expect more than 3,000 guests. The network behind it has grown just as fast: five years after Belton founded it, Now That’s TV counts more than 829,000 Instagram followers and 209,000 YouTube subscribers.
The timing helps. The BET Hip Hop Awards are on indefinite hiatus, and ONE Musicfest is paused until 2027, which leaves Atlanta’s October calendar without its two marquee hip-hop weekends. The NXT Awards is not billing itself as a replacement. It is giving the city somewhere to be.
Tia Kemp returns as host. The show spans more than 20 categories, with announced performers including BossMan Dlow, Saucy Santana, Boston Richey, Pretty Ricky and Soulja Boy. Doors open at 6 p.m. A limited number of tickets are sold through thenxtawards.com, with select tickets on Ticketmaster, and the ceremony streams live on Now That’s TV and YouTube.
The seven scholarship recipients have not been named in advance. Tonight they will be, on a stage, between the performances and the trophies. The placement is the message.
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