Actress and activist Rosario Dawson may not be a hip-hop star herself, but that didn't exclude her from being honored at Sunday night's hip-hop inaugural ball at Sidney Harman Hall. She was presented with the Vanguard Award for her work with Voto Latino.

"I just saw the award that Meek got and there was a video about him and I got totally nervous," she said, referring to rapper Meek Mill, who took home the Community Activist Award, the first presentation of the evening. "I always get so freaked out, are they going to show that weird PSA that I did in a bad Spanish accent?" she laughed. (Lucky for her, it didn't, instead including scenes of Dawson at last summer's Democratic National Convention and working alongside rapper Common.)

Besides Dawson and Mill, John Legend, 2 Chainz, Doug E. Fresh, MC Lyte and civil rights activist Benjamin Chavis were also honored during the two-hour awards presentation.

Russell Simmons was sick with the flu and missed his signature event.