All BMI 2008 Big Easy Music Award Winners

Entertainer of the Year
Terence Blanchard

Lifetime Achievement in Music
Eddie Bo

Ambassador of Music
Donald Harrison, Jr.

Best Blues Artist
Little Freddie King

Best Rhythm and Blues
Jon Cleary

Best Rap/Hip Hop
Lil' Wayne

Best Traditional Jazz
Tom McDermott & Evan Christopher

Best Contemporary Jazz Artist
Terence Blanchard

Best Traditional Brass Band
Treme Brass Band

Best Contemporary Brass Band
Soul Rebels

Best Roots Rock Band
Happy Talk Band

Best Rock Band
Rotary Downs

Best Funk Band
Galactic

Best Zydeco Artist
Terrance Simien & The Zydeco Experience

Best Mixed Bag
Bonerama

Best Female Performer
Irma Thomas

Best Emerging Artist
Shamarr Allen

Best Album
Goin' Home: A Tribute to Fats Domino
Tipitina's Foundation - Vanguard Records
Produced by Bill Taylor, Adam Shipley & Chris Finney

Multiple BMI award-winning songwriters Cory Rooney and Rodney Jerkins will be attending the Urban Awards as well, with Jerkins joining Dallas Austin and Neptunes’ Pharrell Williams in producing the musical tribute to BMI ICON Award recipient, James “The Godfather of Soul” Brown. The BMI ICON Award will be presented to Brown in recognition of his contributions to music and the music business. The first ICON Awards were presented in May to fellow pioneers Chuck Berry, Bo Diddley and Little Richard.

The BMI Urban Awards will recognize the songwriters and publishers of the most-played urban songs on U.S. radio and television. An Urban Song of the Year, Songwriter of the Year and Publisher of the Year will be named that night. In addition to the song awards, BMI will also honor the Top Producers of 2001-2002 and the BMI writers whose songs hit #1 on the Billboard R&B/Hip Hop Charts.

The black-tie, invitation-only event will be held to coincide with Billboard’s R&B/Hip Hop Conference & Awards, also in Miami Beach.

The August 6 ceremony will be the first one for the BMI Urban Awards. The 2001 Urban Awards presentation, scheduled for October 3 last year, was cancelled due to the events of 9/11, although the actual awards were later distributed to the winners. BMI also honored its Latin music songwriters and publishers May 8 with the 9th Annual Latin Awards in Hollywood, Florida.

Yet despite his penchant for unflinchingly realism, Lil’ Wayne does share something in common with his milder pop peers. Unlike most hardcore rappers, Lil’ Wayne rarely resorts to vulgarity - a unique feat for a contemporary hip-hop act.

Though his rhymes are relatively clean, no one has accused Lil’ Wayne of being a lightweight. His 1999 album entered the charts at #3, demonstrating his appeal with hardcore rap fans. Wayne says his rhymes reflect his tough upbringing in the impoverished New Orleans community of Hollygrove. “I look at life an older person,” the rapper says. “I think five or 10 years older because of who I’ve been with all my life.”

What Lil’ Wayne has been most his young life is an impressionable kid seduced by the gangsta lifestyle. In fact, the teenager was so fascinated with the streets he left school to take up hustling fulltime. A fan of Louisiana hip-hop acts like UNLV and Pimp Daddy, Wayne was introduced to Cash Money CEOs and founders Bryan “Baby” Williams and Ronald “Slim” Williams through a mutual friend. Wayne pursued the hip-hop impresarios until they finally gave him a recording deal.

Now Lil’ Wayne is reaping the benefits of a two-tiered career: Aside from his solo work, he’s also a member of the phenomenally successful Hot Boys. As for his solo efforts, Lil’ Wayne vows to continue delivering his crowd-pleasing hip-hop. Says the rapper: “Basically, I’m giving fans more of what they want . . . so they can get an idea of what I’m about.”

Juvenile, nee Terius Gray, picked up his own survival skills growing up in New Orleans' notoriously rough Magnolia projects. His debut indie release "Bounce or the Juvenile" put him on the map and led to a deal with the influential New Orleans-based Cash Money label, which in 1997 released his first full-length album, Solja Rags. That disc was a regional hit, setting the stage for the supergroup Hot Boyz, which teamed Juvenile with Cash Money labelmates B.G., Lil' Wayne and Turk. That team's 1997 collaboration, Get It How U Live, sold close to half a million copies.

Juvenile's second solo album, 400 Degreez, marked the artist's commercial breakthrough, and featured the hits "Ha" (also released in a popular remix featuring Jay-Z) and "Back That Thang Up," and won a Billboard Award for R&B Album of the Year, as well as earning the artist an American Music Awards nomination as Rap/Hip-Hop Artist of the Year.

Tha G-Code finds Juvenile translating his "rules to live by" into what Entertainment Weekly called "a wicked gangsta-rap gumbo loaded with electro-funk grooves and slam-banging ghetto braggadocio," with tracks like "U Understand," "A Million and One Things," "The Man" and "Get It Right" providing a consistently impressive showcase for the artist's hardcore rhyming skills, as well as the sonic inventiveness of Cash Money house producer Mannie Fresh.