Watch Beyonce and Kendrick Lamar give a powerful surprise performance of 'Freedom' at political BET Awards

The night also featured a deeply stirring speech by Grey's Anatomy star Jesse Williams

Beyonce performing 'Freedom' at the 2016 BET Awards (Rex Features)

The year in live music is just going to be Beyoncé forever upping herself and everyone else giving up, isn't it?

Because where do you go from the singer's mind-blowing surprise performance of "Freedom", taken from her explosive album Lemonade, at this year's BET awards? Joined by the inimitable Kendrick Lamar, Queen Bey took a flooded stage to once more bring spectacle and empowerment to the music world.

The 2016 Black Entertainment Television network awards were unsurprisingly politically-leaning this year, with Beyoncé herself choosing to continue the themes of her recent work by opening the performance on an audio clip of Martin Luther King Jr.'s iconic "I Have a Dream" speech.

Elsewhere, Usher ended his performance of "No Limit" with Young Thung by turning his back to the audience and revealing his jacket, emblazoned with the words "Don't Trump America". Yet, the most powerful moment of the night surely belonged to Grey's Anatomy actor Jesse Williams.

"We're done watching and waiting while this invention called whiteness uses and abuses us," he stated in his acceptance speech for the Humanitarian Award. "Burying black people out of sight and out of mind while extracting our culture, our dollars, our entertainment like oil, black gold, ghettoizing and demeaning our creations then stealing them; gentrifying our genius and trying us on like costumes before discarding our bodies."

Beyoncé also, unsurprisingly, won big at the awards; collecting four out of her five nominations, including best female R&B/pop artist, video of the year for "Formation", and Coca-Cola Viewers' Choice. However, by that time, the singer had already hopped on a plane to London to start her international tour; meaning it was her mother Tina Knowles who accepted the awards on her behalf.

The show also held up its promises to stage a moving tribute to the late artist Prince; with the likes of Erykah Badu, Bilal, Stevie Wonder, Jennifer Hudson, Maxwell, Janelle Monae, and Sheila E. all paying tribute.