Viola Davis, Tyler Perry and Regina King Up for Entertainer of the Year at 2021 NAACP Image Awards

4 min readMar 27, 2021

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D-Nice, Viola Davis, Regina King, Trevor Noah and Tyler Perry are nominated for entertainer of the year at the 2021 NAACP Image Awards.

The nominations were virtually announced Tuesday on the NAACP Image Awards’ Instagram by Anika Noni-Rose (“Jingle Jangle: A Christmas Journey”), Chloe Bailey (“Grown-ish”), Erika Alexander (“John Lewis: Good Trouble”), Nicco Annan (“P-Valley”), and TC Carson (“Living Single”).

This is King’s third consecutive nomination for the top award and Perry’s second since 2014. Davis was previously nominated consecutively from 2015–2017. All of them have never won the top category. This is the first nominations for D-Nice and Noah in the category.

Davis also picked up nominations for best actress in a drama series for “How to Get Away with Murder” and best actress in a motion picture for her work in “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom,” while King was among the nominees for directing her debut feature “One Night in Miami.”

D-Nice, Viola Davis, Regina King, Trevor Noah and Tyler Perry are nominated for entertainer of the year at the 2021 NAACP Image Awards.

The nominations were virtually announced Tuesday on the NAACP Image Awards’ Instagram by Anika Noni-Rose (“Jingle Jangle: A Christmas Journey”), Chloe Bailey (“Grown-ish”), Erika Alexander (“John Lewis: Good Trouble”), Nicco Annan (“P-Valley”), and TC Carson (“Living Single”).

This is King’s third consecutive nomination for the top award and Perry’s second since 2014. Davis was previously nominated consecutively from 2015–2017. All of them have never won the top category. This is the first nominations for D-Nice and Noah in the category.

Davis also picked up nominations for best actress in a drama series for “How to Get Away with Murder” and best actress in a motion picture for her work in “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom,” while King was among the nominees for directing her debut feature “One Night in Miami.”

In the other film categories, David E. Talbert’s “Jingle Jangle: A Christmas Journey” led the overall film nominations with 10, with George C. Wolfe’s “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom” and Pete Docter and Kemp Powers’ “Soul” right behind with nine each.

There were a few surprising omissions from the film categories, including Leslie Odom Jr. being omitted from the supporting actor category for his portrayal of Sam Cooke in “One Night in Miami.” Aldis Hodge was the only actor recognized from the film. Odom was nominated for his turn in Disney Plus’ “Hamilton,” which netted a modest four nominations in the television categories.

Amazon Studios’ “Time” from Garrett Bradley also failed to be recognized for documentary feature, which has led with critics’ wins so far this awards season.

ABC’s “Black-ish” was the leading television show with 11 nominations, including outstanding television series.

For the music categories, the female artists dominated with leading the field with five nominations, and Alicia Keys, Chloe x Halle and H.E.R. nabbing four apiece.

Many of the young hip-hop artists failed to be recognized in the outstanding male and female artist categories including Da Baby, Lil Baby, Roddy Rich, Pop Smoke and Megan Thee Stallion. Also, surprising is the complete shutout of The Weeknd following the heavily criticized snub at the Grammy awards.

Netflix was the leading studio overall with 53 nominations, with HBO behind at 31.

The 52nd NAACP Image Awards will air on BET on March 27 at 8:00 PM ET. Non-televised award categories will live stream over five nights March 22–26.

Here is the full list of nominees.

Viola Davis, Tyler Perry and Regina King Up for Entertainer of the Year at 2021 NAACP Image Awards

Written by Yobare