However, it was not just a celebration: a number of artists chose to use the occasion to make impassioned pleas and remember lost friends.
Late rapper Tupac Shakur‘s award was collected by his friend, fellow rapper Snoop Dogg.
Joan Baez – as known for her activism as her singing – made a rallying call for resistance in the face of “the new political cultural reality”.
Image source Flickr
The 76-year-old folk singer, who admitted most younger people had never heard her work, made a return to the spotlight this week when her song Nasty Man went viral.
Joan Baez – imitating Donald Trump’s particular way of speaking – told the audience gathered at Brooklyn’s Barclays Center: “Let us together repeal and replace brutality and make compassion a priority. Let us build a great bridge, a beautiful bridge, to welcome the tired and the poor.”
Pearl Jam frontman Eddie Vedder tackled climate change, saying: “We cannot be the generation that history will look back upon and wonder, why didn’t they do everything humanly possible to solve this biggest crisis of our time?”
Snoop Dogg was on hand to collect Tupac Shakur’s trophy, more than two decades after he was shot dead in Las Vegas.
Calling Tupac “the greatest rapper of all time”, Snoop Dogg recalled how they were just “two black boys struggling to become men”, adding: “To be human is to be many things at once: strong and vulnerable, hard-headed and intellectual, courageous and afraid, loving and vengeful, revolutionary and, oh yeah… gangsta!”
Tributes were also paid to 1986 Hall of Fame inductee Chuck Berry, who died last month aged 90, with ELO playing one of his best known hits – Roll Over Beethoven.
Meanwhile, Nile Rodgers – lead guitarist of disco band Chic – was recognized for his contribution to production.
Tupac Shakur, Electric Light Orchestra (ELO) and Sly Stone are among the artists who will receive lifetime honors from the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2017.
Six artists have been selected to enter the Rock Hall, including Joan Baez and grunge act Pearl Jam.
Tupac Shakur will be only the fifth hip-hop artist recognized, after the likes of Run DMC and Public Enemy.
The Grammys will honor Velvet Underground and Sly Stone with their special merit awards.
In a statement, the Recording Academy said the Velvet Underground, whose career was masterminded by Andy Warhol, were “ahead of their time, both visually and sonically”.
“Despite a relatively brief lifespan and limited commercial success, the Velvet Underground are now recognized as one of the most influential rock bands of all time,” the statement added.
Image source Flickr
Sly Stone, who was the lead singer in Sly and the Family Stone, was praised by the Academy for playing “a critical role in the development of soul, funk, rock, and psychedelia”.
Other recipients include jazz legend Nina Simone, gospel singer Shirley Caesar, jazz pianist Ahmad Jamal, country star Jimmie Rodgers and guitarist Charley Pride.
Nina Simone, who died in 2003, became famous in the 1950s and is known for classic songs including Feeling Good and I Put a Spell on You.
The musicians will be celebrated in February as part of the festivities in the run up to the Grammy Awards.
The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, which is arguably the more prestigious honor, is voted for by 900 historians, members of the music industry and artists, including every living Rock Hall inductee.
Artists become eligible 25 years after the release of their first album or single. 2017 is the first year Pearl Jam and Tupac Shakur were eligible. They are also the first artists to join the institution who started their careers in the 1990s.
The induction ceremony will take place on Friday, April 7, 2017, at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn. HBO will broadcast the highlights, which often include an all-star jam featuring past and present winners.
A limited number of pre-sale tickets will be available for Rock & Roll Hall of Fame members in advance of the public sale date. To be eligible for the member pre-sale, you must be an active Rock & Roll Hall of Fame member by December 31, 2016. Additional public ticket details and presale offers will be announced in the future. The special exhibition on the 2017 Inductees will open at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland on March 30.
Broadway musical Holler If Ya Hear Me, featuring songs by late rapper Tupac Shakur, is to close after less than two months.
The curtains will fall for the final time on Sunday at the Palace Theatre after just 38 performances.
Producer Eric L. Gold cited “the financial burdens of Broadway” as the reason.
The jukebox show features Tupac Shakur’s hits but does not tell the story of the rapper, who died after being shot in 1996 aged 25.
Broadway musical Holler If Ya Hear Me features songs by late rapper Tupac Shakur
Last week, it managed to pull in only $155,000 from a possible $917,000, which is less than 17%.
Directed by Kenny Leon, who won a Tony Award for his recent revival of A Raisin In the Sun, Holler If Ya Hear Me is billed as a non-biographical story about friendship, family, revenge, change and hope.
The musical received mixed reviews from critics.
Variety called it a “generic gangland saga” that was “predictable” with “clumsy characterizations”, although praised its “soaring performances”.
Featuring Tupac Shakur tracks such as California Love, Me Against the World and Keep Ya Head Up, the musical is the first time hip hop classics have been performed on the Broadway stage.
Tupac Shakur’s mother, Afeni Shakur, is a producer of the show.
Rapper Tupac Shakur died following a drive-by shooting in Las Vegas, thought to be the result of gangland conflict.
Tupac Shakur’s last words have been revealed by a police officer 18 years after his death.
The hip-hop star reportedly used his last words to swear at a police officer as he lay dying.
Tupac Shakur suffered multiple bullet wounds when he and his Death Row Records boss Marion “Suge” Knight were targeted in a drive-by shooting in Las Vegas in September 1996.
Tupac Shakur died from multiple bullet wounds in a drive-by shooting in Las Vegas in September 1996
Now Sergeant Chris Carroll, the officer who pulled the rapper from the wreckage of the car, has opened up about Tupac Shakur’s final moments.
According to VegasSeven.com, Sergeant Chris Carroll, formerly of the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police, says he was the first officer to arrive at the scene and after realizing Tupac Shakur was bleeding heavily.
Chris Carroll asked the rapper to identify the gunman.
The former police officer says: “I’m looking at Tupac, and he’s trying to yell back at Suge, and I’m asking him, <<Who shot you? What happened? Who did it?>> And he was just kind of ignoring me … I kept asking over and over, <<Who did this? Who shot you?>> And he basically kept ignoring me. And then I saw in his face, in his movements, all of a sudden in the snap of a finger, he changed. And he went from struggling to speak, being non-cooperative, to an <<I’m at peace>> type of thing. Just like that. He went from fighting to <<I can’t do it>>. And when he made that transition, he looked at me, and he’s looking right in my eyes. And that’s when I looked at him and said one more time, <<Who shot you?’ He looked at me and he took a breath to get the words out, and he opened his mouth, and I thought I was actually going to get some co-operation. And then the words came out: <<F— you>>.”
Tupac Shakur, 25, died six days later at University Medical Center of Southern Nevada. The murder remains unsolved.
Whitney Houston allegedly called Jermaine Jackson in the wee hours of the morning about five years ago, confessing that she was leaving then-husband Bobby Brown to marry him.
According to a source, Jermaine Jackson, who was then married to his second wife, Alejandra, considered Whitney Houston’s offer, the New York Daily News reported.
Earlier this week, it was revealed that Jermaine Jackson and Whitney Houston enjoyed a year-long affair in the early ’80s while Jackson was married to his first wife, Hazel Gordy.
Whitney Houston allegedly called Jermaine Jackson in the wee hours of the morning about five years ago, confessing that she was leaving then-husband Bobby Brown to marry him
Another source, who knew the late Tupac Shakur, said that the rap icon was also obsessed with Whitney Houston.
The source said that Tupac Shakur, who was murdered in 1996, asked her to track down Whitney Houston’s cell phone number.
“He told me that if a brother with money like him stepped to her she would leave Bobby,” the source said.
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