Doja Cat nearly naked at MTV VMAs, Rema and Selena Gomez win first Afrobeats award

All eyes were on half-South African Doja Cat as she arrived in a dress of bare threads at Tuesday night’s MTV Video Music Awards at the Prudential Centre in Newark, New Jersey, in the US. The prestigious ceremony honoured the 50th anniversary of hip hop.

The Paint the Town Red rapper and fashion maven appeared to be celebrating Halloween early as she arrived at the VMAs pink carpet wearing a custom couture gown of spider web threads by New York-based luxury designer Monse.

Dressed in a business suit jacket with glasses and red boots, Doja Cat launched into a medley of Attention, Paint the Town Red and Demons from her anticipated fourth studio album Scarlet.

Best Afrobeats went to Nigeria’s Rema and American singer Selena Gomez for Calm Down, beating stiff competition from Ayra Starr, Burna Boy, Libianca, Fireboy DML, Wizkid featuring Ayra Starr and Davido featuring Musa Keys from Polokwane.

“This means so much, seeing Afrobeats grow this big ... I’ve been here on this stage representing Afrobeats and one thing I won’t forget to do is to give a shout out to the people in Africa who opened doors for me,” he said when accepting the award with Gomez by his side.

Taylor Swift won the award for Video of the Year for the second time in a row. Swift accepted the moon person accolade in person, in addition to Song of the Year, Best Pop and Best Direction for Anti-Hero.

Shakira arrived at the VMAs pink carpet with her two sons Milan and Sasha and received the Video Vanguard Award for the best-selling Latina artist of all time after performing a medley of her hit songs.

“Thank you to my sons who always support me through thick and thin. Thank you for being my army and helping me fight my battles,” said Shakira when accepting the award.

Diddy, on stage with his twin daughters and son Christian, received the prestigious Global Icon Award. “This is a dream come true for me,” said Diddy.

“I grew up watching MTV, like, ‘man, I wish one day I could be up there’, and I started out as a paper boy. I didn’t know I was going to be here one day.”