Who Could Be the Video Vanguard Recipient at the 2024 VMAs? Our Eight Best Guesses

Outside of perhaps only video of the year, no award at the MTV Video Music Awards is more revered — nor its announcement more anticipated — than the Video Vanguard.

The lifetime achievement award, which dates back to the first-ever VMAs in 1984 and has been given out annually since (with occasional gaps, most recently for the pandemic-stricken first two years of the 2020s), is given to reward “outstanding contributions” and “profound impact” on music videos and popular culture. It’s named after Michael Jackson, arguably the most outstanding artist in music video history, and has been handed out over the decades to video luminaries ranging from David Bowie and The Rolling Stones to Beyoncé and Missy Elliott. Most recently, the Video Vanguard has been awarded to rap icon Nicki Minaj (2022) and global pop superstar Shakira (2023).

Who will be the 2024 recipient? While MTV has already revealed the nominations for most of the competitive categories in this year’s VMAs, they have not yet divulged the Video Vanguard honoree — though the announcement is expected to come some time this week. Before that, we at Billboard decided to take a crack at predicting the award’s recipient this year. We started with some of the biggest and most legendary artists yet to receive the award, and filtered our list through factors like contemporary relevance, promotional considerations and the simple likelihood of the artist being willing to show up to deliver a speech and career-spanning medley performance, as has been customary of honorees for most of the past decade.

Here are our eight best guesses for this year’s Video Vanguard recipient, ranked (roughly) from least to most likely.