Each time Jamie Foxx steps as much as a microphone, one can anticipate to be entertained.

And that’s exactly what the Oscar and Grammy-winning famous person plans to do when he hits the highway to debate the circumstances round his sudden hospitalization almost a yr in the past.

On Sunday afternoon, Foxx provided attendees of the African American Movie Critics Affiliation’s (AAFCA) Particular Achievement Awards luncheon a sneak peek on the tone of that materials — a mixture of heartfelt reflection with some top-notch zingers — whereas accepting AAFCA’s Producers Award alongside his Foxxhole Productions companion Datari Turner.

2023 was an enormous yr for the corporate because of the back-to-back successes of Netflix’s “They Cloned Tyrone” and Amazon’s “The Burial.” However whereas Foxxhole’s films have been taking pictures to the highest of the streaming charts, Foxx was combating for his life after struggling a medical emergency — the character of which has not been disclosed.

“Everyone desires to know what occurred, and I’m going to let you know what occurred. However I’ve gotta do it in my approach,” Foxx mentioned. “I’m gonna do it in a humorous approach. We’re gonna be on the stage. We’re gonna get again to the standup kind of roots.”

“It’ll be referred to as, ‘What Had Occurred Was,’ and it’s bought all of the issues that occurred, particularly on our facet of our group,” he mentioned, joking concerning the on-line rumors that the “Jamie Foxx” sightings after his hospitalization weren’t, in actual fact, him. “I dove out of a automobile to save lots of this Black lady’s purse,” he recalled. “That ain’t no rattling Jamie, that’s a clone.” (Spoiler alert: it was him.)

Final December, Foxx made his first public look on the Critics Selection Affiliation’s particular celebration of Black, Latino and AAPI achievements, the place he shocked visitors by taking the stage to just accept the Vanguard Award. Then, in January, he rejoined Cameron Diaz on the set of “Again in Motion,” reverse Cameron Diaz and he’s heading again to co-host Fox’s “Beat Shazam” along with his daughter Corinne Foxx. And on Sunday afternoon, he and Turner appeared alongside fellow honorees — filmmaker Deon Taylor, choreographer Fatima Robinson, the artistic workforce behind “Killers of the Flower Moon” and the household of the late social justice campaigner Michael Latt — on the invite-only luncheon held on the Los Angeles Athletic Membership in downtown L.A.

After what he’s been by over the previous yr, Foxx mentioned he sees life otherwise.

“I’m so grateful. And I simply get emotional. As a result of it was actually… it’s past the scope. Cherish life. I’ve some individuals in my life that basically made certain I used to be right here as a result of it was dire straits,” Foxx mentioned, throwing in a joke that he’s nearly too grateful for all the things these days (or a minimum of his daughter thinks so). “I used to be ingesting some water, like ‘Wow, you style this water? It’s so moist. That is the wettest water’ [and she replied,] ‘Dad, you’ve gotta sit back.’”

Foxx appeared again in high kind on the occasion, riling up the gang properly earlier than it was time to just accept his award. From his seat on the heart of the ballroom, Foxx urged presenter Tyrese Gibson to sing just a few bars of Sam Cooke’s “A Change Is Gonna Come.” Onstage, Foxx defined that he’d pushed for the impromptu serenade as a result of “you simply don’t know” what tomorrow holds and his current experiences have modified the way in which he appears on the leisure enterprise too.

“We ought to be so enthused to be on this enterprise of taking part in make imagine – at its highest stage,” Foxx mentioned. “Nevertheless it’s nonetheless these moments if you have been within the mirror and also you have been performing such as you have been Billy Dee Williams. … Now that we’re right here, it appears larger than what it truly is as a result of there’s so much that goes together with it. However on the core of it, it’s us [playing] make imagine, placing smiles on individuals’s faces, and it’s our artwork. And artwork is subjective.”

In fact, the stakes are increased for Black creatives, with Foxx sharing how he discovered to navigate the enterprise whereas engaged on “In Dwelling Coloration” beneath Keenan Ivory Wayans.

“I discovered that Black may very well be wonderful,” he mentioned, explaining the affect seeing an all-Black artistic workforce — from the writing workers to craft providers — had on him as he went on to create “The Jamie Foxx Present.”

Furthermore, all through his profession, Foxx has discovered how crucial it’s to name out that excellence, sharing that in the course of the Oscar marketing campaign for “Ray,” there have been conversations about whether or not he was saying “Black” an excessive amount of in his acceptance speeches.

His response: “We’re gonna name it a Black story. Not for simply the rationale of being Black. It’s enterprise. If this Black story wins the Oscar, what does it do for the following Black story that comes alongside?”

That’s additionally the aim of occasions like seventh annual AAFCA luncheon and the fifteenth annual AAFCA Awards, which have been held simply 12 days prior, each saluting entertainers, filmmakers, activists, innovators and coalition builders and spotlighting Black excellence within the arts.

The AAFCA Awards — held on Feb. 21 on the Beverly Wilshire lodge in Beverly Hills — celebrated the yr’s greatest movies, with Twine Jefferson’s “American Fiction” and the Oprah Winfrey-produced musical reimagining of “The Coloration Purple” main with 4 wins apiece, together with prizes for greatest movie and greatest musical, respectively. Ava DuVernay‘s “Origin” took dwelling three trophies.

Particular person winners additionally included Colman Domingo (actor), Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor (actress), Sterling Ok. Brown (supporting actor), Da’Vine Pleasure Randolph and Danielle Brooks (in a tie for supporting actress), Lily Gladstone (breakout efficiency) and Jefferson (rising filmmaker), whereas Misty Copeland, George C. Wolfe and Jeffrey Wright accepted particular honors.

The ceremony marked was a very welcome salute to “Origin,” the masterful adaptation of Pulitzer Prize winner Isabel Wilkerson’s e-book “Caste: The Origins of Our Discontent,” which had gone largely unheralded this awards season. However DuVernay used her second within the highlight to sing the praises of the pioneers who offered her with the trophies — Debbie Allen and Suzanne de Passe.

“As a result of she’s accomplished all these different issues, we overlook that this lady is among the foremothers of Black administrators — Black ladies administrators, particularly. She did it first, bravely, boldly and fantastically,” DuVernay mentioned of Allen, earlier than itemizing off her credit, together with “Gray’s Anatomy,” “Fame” and 86 episodes of “A Totally different World,” which had been notably formative for DuVernay’s goals. The identical was true about De Passe, who was nominated for an Oscar for the “Girl Sings the Blues” screenplay, amongst her prolonged listing of achievements.

By having these ladies hand her her awards, a torch was handed and the cycle of progress rolled ahead for Black artists.

It’s mainly what Foxx would describe in his speech a pair weeks later, however DuVernay successfully summed it up in her remarks too: “‘Origin’ is a couple of easy thought that everybody issues. What we expect and imagine issues. The whole lot we do and say issues. The whole lot we don’t do issues. The movie was about resistance and triumph. So let’s hold resisting in order that we are able to triumph.”

Extra images from inside each awards ceremonies beneath: