The 2012 Soul Train Awards will chug to Las Vegas on November 8, and will premiere on BET and Centric on November 25. Hosted by Cedric the Entertainer, an original King of Comedy, the show will feature live performances by some of the best entertainers in the jazz, R&B, hip-hop and gospel genres. Also, this year’s show will revive the Lifetime Achievement Award, which is to be awarded to New Edition.

With two nominations for Album of the Year (“Write Me Back”) and The Ashford & Simpson Songwriter’s Award (“Share My Love”), R. Kelly is the most nominated artist in Soul Train history, with a career total of 21 nominations. On the night of the awards, however, all eyes will be on Usher, who is nominated for five awards. These include Song of the Year (“Climax”), Album of the Year (“Looking For Myself”), The Ashford & Simpson Songwriter’s Award (“Climax”), Best Dance Performance (“Scream”) and Best R&B/Soul Male Artist. Leading the females in nominations is British songbird Estelle who is up for three awards—Song of the Year (“Thank You”), The Ashford & Simpson Songwriter’s Award (“Thank You”) and Best R&B/Soul Female Artist. Both Whitney Houston and Amy Winehouse garnered posthumous nominations for Best Gospel/Inspirational Performance (“Celebrate” featuring Jordin Sparks) and Best International Performance (“Our Day Will Come”), respectively.

Launched in 1987, the Soul Train Awards honored the best in urban music of the previous year. A spin-off of Soul Train, which was created by Don Cornelius in 1970, the award show was considered by many to be black music’s equivalent of the Grammy awards. The Grammys did not always acknowledge the talent of African Americans, due in part to the under representation in the voting academy itself. The Soul Train Awards filled a void for many years. In recent years, however, it appears that interest in the award show has waned, with more accomplished celebrities who have attained worldwide success and have many Grammy awards under their belts.

Indeed, winning a Grammy gives a career boost as far as performance and production fees are concerned. However, is it necessary for these artists to shun the award show that presented a platform for their talents to be recognized and appreciated, simply because the Grammys have finally taken notice of them? Of course not, but it seems that is exactly what has happened. Hopefully this year’s show will see a return of some of the industry’s biggest names.

To see a full list of nominees, log onto centrictv.com.

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