(New York) The music elite in the United States meet Friday evening in New York to celebrate the new entrants to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, the pantheon of rock and a number of popular musical styles: among them, Missy Elliott , Kate Bush and the late George Michael, who died in 2016.
This institution based in Cleveland (Ohio), in the northern United States, is also trying to improve its image in terms of gender and racial diversity.
In addition to the American rapper Missy Elliott, the Californians of the metal and rap fusion, Rage Against the Machine, the Texan icon of country, Willie Nelson, 90 years old, the American rocker Sheryl Crow and the R&B group The Spinners complete the vintage 2023.
They are in the spotlight at a gala concert Friday evening at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn.
The prestigious Rock and Roll Hall of Fame – which surveyed more than 1,000 musicians, music historians, music industry executives to make its choices – has never been solely confined to rock and has opened its pantheon, from its first edition in 1986, to other genres: soul, blues, R & B, folk, country, then rap.
In 2022, rapper Eminem and country queen Dolly Parton made their debut.
First woman in hip hop
Missy Elliott will become the first female star of the hip hop cultural and musical genre who celebrated her 50th birthday in New York this summer – to enter the pantheon of music.
To be one, you need at least 25 years of career after the first commercial success.
It is the rapper Queen Latifah who will induct Missy Elliott, a “blessing” said the latter on the ABC channel because “whatever people say, the world of hip-hop is both special and unique”.
On the other hand, the famous British songwriter and musician Kate Bush, 65, announced in a press release on Friday that she “could not[t] not attend” the ceremony, without giving a reason, but expressing her “honor” to be rewarded by “the beating heart of the American music industry”.
The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame is one of the pillars of this industry, as is the Recording Academy which oversees the Grammy Awards, the Oscars of music.
This pantheon has had to, like many cultural and entertainment institutions in the United States, make efforts for its image and its diversity policy: to be less masculine and less white.
Whitney Houston, Aretha Franklin and Madonna have notably been inducted, but women represent barely 10% of the thousand members of the Hall of Fame since 1986.
Controversy
Because the institution was shaken by a controversy in September.
Jann Wenner, 77-year-old American businessman and founder in 1967 of the respected cultural magazine Rolling Stone, was removed from the board of directors of the Hall of Fame for remarks deemed racist and sexist in the New York Times.
Asked about the complete absence of musicians of color in his latest book of tribute to the greatest rock stars (The Masters), Jann Wenner responded that no female rocker “expressed herself in a sufficiently intellectually structured way”.
The president of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, John Sykes, assured this week in the New York Times that “the electorate is young and diverse enough to really make the most thoughtful decisions about who should be inducted.”
“We need to do better, but we are making progress,” he said.
The ceremony begins at 8 p.m.