As Lupita Nyong’o accepted an award from the Harlem School of Arts — and entered the stage to Beyoncé’s anthemic hit “Brown Skin Girl” — the actress mainly had two people to thank for fueling her passion for the arts as a child: her parents.
At the school’s annual Mask Ball in New York City on Monday, she told the audience she didn’t have access to an arts-focused school in Nairobi, Kenya, but the reason why her “interest in the arts thrived was because I had parents who valued those interests.”
So it was only appropriate that the Oscar winner’s mother, Dorothy Nyong’o, also received the Visionary Lineage Award alongside her daughter at the event.
Other honorees at Monday’s benefit included Essence Communications CEO Michelle Ebanks and JP Morgan Chase executive Racquel Oden.