Getting rewarded and acknowledged for your hard work can make a huge difference, especially when it's still early on in your career. Lil Baby learned that tonight (June 23) at the 2019 BET Awards, which took place at Los Angeles' Microsoft Theatre. The rapper won the award for Best New Artist.

When it came time to accept the award, Lil Baby was gracious. "This my first time winnin' an award," he said. "But I just wanna thank my fans and everybody who been rockin' with me, supporting everything I do. I wanna thank the Most High, my family and everybody else."

The field was stacked, with City Girls, Blueface, Juice Wrld and Queen Naija also in contention for the honor.

Lil Baby, one of many talents on the Quality Control roster, has reached levels of success that outpace some hip-hop veterans in his few short years in the game. Dropping two projects that landed in the top 5 of the Billboard 200 last year (Harder Than Ever and Street Gossip) the rapper has truly found his own way.

The rest of the field were strong competitors, too. With his meteoric rise over the last year, Blueface, with his personality and his hit song "Thotiana," has done more than enough to enter the category for this award. He is also a 2019 XXL Freshman, gracing the cover that was revealed last week.

There is no young duo in rap quite like the City Girls. Rising in popularity thanks to their woman-focused club jams, 2019 saw their song "Act Up" not only make noise on the charts, but at parties all across the country. Everyone knows the first few bars of the song; add that to the group staying afloat while facing adversity and it's hard not to root for them.

Juice Wrld's second solo album, Death Race For Love, was the No. 1 album in the country when it debuted, pushing young Juice's career to another level. The Chicago artist has risen to the top very quickly and certainly earned his way into the best new artist conversation.

Congratulations to the award winner, Lil Baby, and enjoy the rest of the show.

See Rico Nasty, Tee Grizzley, PnB Rock, Rick Ross and More at the 2019 BET Awards

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