BET will recognize the singer’s lasting influence on R&B and soul during the November 27 broadcast.
Chaka Khan is the 2026 Soul Train Awards’ Classic Soul honoree, adding another career-spanning recognition to a year that already brought a Recording Academy Lifetime Achievement Award. BET announced the selection on October 22, identifying the honor as a celebration of an artist whose influence has helped shape R&B across generations.
The ceremony will air November 27 at 8 p.m. ET/PT on BET and CBS, according to the network’s announcement. BET’s official awards hub also identifies Anthony Anderson as the host.
BET pointed to a catalog that moves from “Tell Me Something Good” and “Sweet Thing” to “I’m Every Woman,” “Ain’t Nobody” and “I Feel for You.” Her current work remains part of that story: the network identifies Sia, Snoop Dogg, Lenny Kravitz and Greg Kurstin among the collaborators on Chakzilla, connecting the career celebration with music that continues to bring different generations together.
Khan’s range was also central to her 2023 Rock & Roll Hall of Fame induction in the Musical Excellence category, with Jazmine Sullivan serving as her inductor. The Hall’s career account traces a progression from Rufus’ early-1970s funk to the disco of “I’m Every Woman,” then jazz and pop recordings in the following decade. It emphasizes not just vocal force, but the phrasing and intimacy that coexist with it.
The Recording Academy recognition arrived earlier this year at its Special Merit Awards ceremony in Los Angeles. As the Associated Press reported, Khan accepted the Lifetime Achievement Award at the Wilshire Ebell Theatre on the eve of the main Grammys, following a film revisiting her work with Rufus and as a solo performer. That presentation connected songs written by Stevie Wonder and Prince with Khan’s own defining interpretations.
Soul Train has its own history of celebrating that legacy. In 2009, Khan and Charlie Wilson received the program’s Icon Award, according to the original network announcement. The new Classic Soul Honor continues that relationship under a different named distinction, rather than representing her first recognition from the franchise. For the November audience, it places a singer whose work crosses funk, soul, jazz and pop within the broader tradition the show was created to celebrate.
