Demi Lovato & More Artists Join Climate Change Human Rights Campaign

Demi Lovato is speaking up for climate justice goals…

The 31-year-old half-Mexican American singer/actress is among the artists releasing statements urging leaders at the United Nations Climate Change Conference to support climate justice goals.

Demi LovatoLovato is part of the Right Here, Right Now Global Climate Alliance, a campaign that links climate action and human rights. Other artists participating include Cyndi LauperCarole King and Annie Lennox.

The campaign will benefit from the artists’ combined social media followings of more than 300 million, with the goal to build support for United Nations Human Rights climate justice goals. Rob Thomas will add his voice to the campaign in the coming days.

The Right Here, Right Now Global Climate Alliance addresses climate change through the lens of human rights, coalescing input from human rights experts, scientists, corporate leaders, NGOs, academics, advocates and people around the globe in the fight for rights-based climate action to preserve the future of humanity and the planet. The organization is partnered with the United Nations Human Rights, one of the U.N.’s major divisions.

All four artists released statements supporting the campaign via Instagram.

“By working together and supporting rights-based climate action for people and the planet,” Lovato wrote, “we can realize a better, more sustainable future for all.”

“Climate change is the SINGLE BIGGEST HEALTH THREAT FACING HUMANITY,” Lennox wrote. “The impacts are already harming health through air pollution, disease, extreme weather events, forced displacement, food insecurity, and pressures on mental health. Every year environmental factors take the lives of 13 million people… Climate change is a huge challenge, yet there ARE MANY SOLUTIONS. These solutions can deliver economic benefits while improving our lives and protecting the environment.”

“The impacts of climate change are now being felt in all countries, yet not all people are being impacted the same way,” wrote Lauper. “Climate change is hitting the poorest and most vulnerable women, children and marginalized people of the world most.”

“By working together and supporting inclusive, rights-based climate action for people and the planet,” wrote King, “we can realize a better, more sustainable future for all.”

The social media campaign precedes a press conference from the Right Here, Right Now Global Climate Alliance and United Nations Human Rights in Dubai at COP28 on December 8.

The press conference will include Recording Academy president Panos A. Panay and Chantel Sausedo, the Recording Academy’s vp of artist relations, who together will discuss the organization’s goals of using music to promote climate justice and rights-based climate action.

The Right Here, Right Now Global Climate Summit will be held at the University of Oxford from September 11-14, 2024 and end with the Right Here, Right Now Global Climate Concert. The lineup for the event will be announced at a later date.

Christina Aguilera Among Celebrities Urging U.S. Senators to Stop Gun Violence Now

Christina Aguilera is calling for politicians to take action on the issue of gun reform

The 40-year-old half-Ecuadorian American Grammy-winning singer has joined a roster of celebrities who’ve signed an open letter to U.S. Senators urging them stop gun violence now.

Christina Aguilera

Five years ago, amidst a string of deadly attacks at live music venues including the horrific mass shooting at Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Fla., on June 12, 2016, the cover of Billboard‘s July 2016 issue featured an open letter to U.S. Congress signed by 200 artists and music industry executives calling for gun reform.

Unfortunately, the need for reform has only grown stronger as shootings have continued around the country at a terrifying rate.

So now, five years later, as venues prepare to reopen after their pandemic shutdown and music fans ready to return to concerts and festivals, we stand again with the music community to ask lawmakers to take swift action to stop the violence. — Hannah Karp, Billboard editorial director

An Open Letter to Senators: Stop Gun Violence Now

As leading artists and executives in the music industry, we are adding our voices to the chorus of Americans demanding change.

Music always has been celebrated communally, on dance floors and at concert halls. But this life-affirming ritual, like so many other daily experiences — going to school or church or work — continues to be threatened, because of gun violence in this country.

The one thing that connects the tragedies like the shootings in Boulder, El Paso, Las Vegas, Parkland and so many other places in America, to the one that happened in Orlando five years ago this June, is that it is far too easy for dangerous people to get their hands on guns.

We call on the Senate to do more to prevent the gun violence that kills more than 100 Americans every day and injures hundreds more: Take action on background checks.

Billboard and the undersigned implore you — the people who are elected to represent us — to close the deadly loopholes that put the lives of so many music fans, and all of us, at risk.

Sincerely,

Christina Aguilera, Tori Amos, Sara Barielles, Aaron Bay-Schuck, Tony Bennett, Selim Bouab, Rob Bourdon, Scooter Braun, Cortez Bryant, Michael Bublé, Vanessa Carlton, Joseph Carozza, Steve Cooper, Tom Corson, Lee Daniels, Ellen DeGeneres, Brad Delson, Diplo, Mike Easterlin, John Esposito, Melissa Etheridge, Fletcher, Luis Fonsi, Becky G, Kevin Gore, Julie Greenwald, Josh Groban, Horacio Gutierrez, Joe Hahn, Halsey, Billy Joel, Craig Kallman, Alicia Keys, Kid Cudi, Carole King, Elle King, Adam Lambert, Cyndi Lauper, Kevin Liles, Dre London, Jennifer Lopez, Macklemore, Zayn Malik, Carianne Marshall, Ricky Martin, Paul McCartney, Julia Michaels, Guy Moot, Jason Mraz, Gregg Nadel, Yoko Ono, Mark Pinkus, Gregory Porter, Prince Royce, Bonnie Raitt, Dawn Richard, RMR, Paul Robinson, Maggie Rogers, Kelly Rowland, Mike Shinoda, Sia, Matt Signore, Britney Spears, Rob Stevenson, Sting, Barbra Streisand, Justin Tranter, Sir Trilli, Sharon Van Etten, Aimie Vaughn-Fruehe, Eddie Vedder, Andrew Watt.

If you’re interested in signing the letter, you can email guncontrol@billboard.com.

Zack de la Rocha & His Rage Against the Machine Band Mates Earn Third Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Nomination

Zack de la Rocha is getting another chance to head to the Hall

The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame has announced its 2021 nominees, with the 51-year-old Mexican American musician, singer, songwriter, rapper and activist and his Rage Against the Machine band mates earning a spot on the ballot.

Zack de la Rocha x Rage Against the Machine

In the the most gender-inclusive ballot in the Rock Hall’s history, de la Rocha and his band mates are joined by Mary J. Blige, Kate Bush, Devo, Foo Fighters, The Go-Go’s, Iron Maiden, Jay-Z, Chaka Khan, Carole King, Fela Kuti, LL Cool J, New York Dolls, Todd Rundgren, Tina Turner and Dionne Warwick on the 2021 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame ballot.

Formed in 1991, the group consists of vocalist  de la Rocha, bassist and backing vocalist Tim Commerford, guitarist Tom Morello, and drummer Brad Wilk.

The bands songs express revolutionary political views.

The band was nominated for induction into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in its first year of eligibility in 2017, as well as in 2018, although both bids failed. Could their third nomination be the charm?

Fan votes, which you can cast at RockHall.com, contribute to the induction process, but don’t guarantee entry.

In 2020, the Rock Hall inducted Depeche Mode, Nine Inch Nails, the Notorious B.I.G., Whitney Houston, T. Rex and the Doobie Brothers into its ranks during a virtual ceremony due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Joan Baez Among This Year’s Recipients of the Kennedy Center Honors

Joan Baez is set to receive a special honor in Our Nation’s Capital.

The 80-year-old half-Mexican American contemporary folk singer has been selected to receive the 43rd Kennedy Center Honors alongside Garth Brooks, violinist Midori, choreographer Debbie Allen and the ageless Dick Van Dyke.

Joan Baez

“It has been my life’s joy to make art,” said Baez in a statement. It’s also been my life’s joy to make, as the late Congressman John Lewis called it, ‘good trouble.’ What luck to have been born with the ability to do both; each one giving strength and credibility to the other.”

Traditionally held in December, the 2020 edition of the Kennedy Center Honors was postponed to May 2021 due to the ongoing effects of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Live events and filming are planned for the week of May 17-22. The Honors Gala will be recorded for broadcast on CBS as a two-hour primetime special that will air on June 6 at 9:00 pm ET/PT.

But the pandemic will have an impact on how the event is staged, with live-filmed tributes and virtual moments to take the place of the traditional event in a packed Kennedy Center Opera House.

“The center’s entire campus will come alive with small, in-person events and re-envisioned virtual tributes. Featuring multiple events for physically-distant audiences in locations across the Kennedy Center’s campus…Programs for each event will encompass both performances and speaking tributes for the honorees,” according to a statement. “Virtual events will also be held throughout the week beginning May 17, and the viability of additional in-person events will be considered as COVID-19 safety protocols evolve over the upcoming months…An honoree medallion ceremony for the honorees and a limited audience will be hosted by the Kennedy Center during [the week of] May 17–22.”

Joan Baez

President-elect Joe Biden is expected to attend the Honors Gala, as presidents traditionally have done (barring a national crisis). Donald Trump was the first president to decline the invitation every year of his term.

This is the first time in five years that a majority of the honorees have been women. Carole King, Rita Moreno and Cicely Tyson were three of the five honorees in 2015.

“The Kennedy Center Honors serves as a moment to celebrate the remarkable artists who have spent their lives elevating the cultural history of our nation and world,” said David M. Rubenstein, Kennedy Center Chairman.

Here’s a look at each of this year’s honorees:

Joan Baez: The folk legend had three top 10 albums on the Billboard 200 in the 1960s, including Farewell, Angelina. Her classic version of Robbie Robertson’s “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down” reached No. 3 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1971. Baez was just 21 when she made the cover of Time in November 1962. Baez has one of the longest spans of Grammy nominations in history, from 1962 to 2018. She has yet to win a Grammy in competition (despite nine nods), but she received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Recording Academy in 2007.

Garth Brooks: The country star, 58, is one of the best-selling recording artists in history. The RIAA lists him second only to The Beatles, with 157 million albums sold in the U.S. (compared to 183 million for the Fab Four). He has had nine No. 1 albums on the Billboard 200, including Ropin’ the Wind, which topped the chart for 18 weeks, still the record for a country album. Brooks has amassed 14 CMA Awards, including a record seven awards for entertainer of the year. He was artist of the decade for the 1990s at the ACM Awards. He has won two Grammys. He received the Gershwin Prize for Popular Song last year. He made the cover of Time in 1992 in a story headlined “Country’s Big Boom.”

Midori: The Japanese-born American violinist, 49, was just 19 when she received her first (and to date only) Grammy nomination for best classical performance, instrumental soloist (without orchestra) for the album Paganini: 24 Caprices For Solo Violin Op. 1. She made her debut with the New York Philharmonic at age 11 as a surprise guest soloist at the New Year’s Eve Gala in 1982. 

Dick Van Dyke: The actor, 95, won three Emmys for The Dick Van Dyke Show (1961-66), which is widely regarded as the granddaddy of smart, sophisticated sitcoms. He also won an Emmy in 1977 for Van Dyke & Company, which took outstanding variety or music series. He was inducted into the Television Academy Hall of Fame in 1995. He won a Tony in 1961 for Bye, Bye Birdie (in which he introduced the jaunty “Put on a Happy Face”) and a Grammy for 1964’s Mary Poppins (in which he took the lead in singing the Oscar-winning “Chim Chim Cher-ee”).

Debbie Allen: The actress, dancer, choreographer, singer-songwriter, director and producer, 70, has won three Emmys for choreography: two for Fame and one for Motown 30: What’s Goin’ On. She also received two Tony nods for acting in revivals of West Side Story (1980) and Sweet Charity (1986). She is a former member of the President’s Committee on the Arts and Humanities.

Gloria Estefan to Perform at ‘Nurse Heroes Live’ Benefit Virtual Concert on Thanksgiving

Gloria Estefan is giving special thanks to some of our frontliners…

The 63-year-old Cuban singer will be among the entertainers honoring nurses in a star-studded benefit virtual concert on Thanksgiving.

Gloria Estefanria

Nurse Heroes has announced that the concert called Nurse Heroes Live will stream on the organization’s YouTube and Facebook pages along with LiveXLive on November 26 at 7:00 pm EST.

The benefit will provide money for a variety of programs including scholarships for nurses and their children.

Estefan joins a lineup of performers that include Stevie Wonder, Celine Dion, Josh Groban, Black Eyed Peas, Pitbull, The Wailers, Carole King, Maluma and Andrea Bocelli.

Whoopi Goldberg will host the concert with special appearances by Oprah Winfrey and Billy Crystal.

Taylor Swift will donate a signed collectible edition “Folklore” guitar, which will be auctioned for the benefit of the Nurses Heroes Foundation.

The nurses of New York’s Northwell Health will be the first beneficiaries of the concert. The event will also showcase 50 nurses from the hospital in an ensemble performance with several celebrities.

The concert will be produced by Emilio Estefan and Times Square Live Media.

Becky G to Serve as Co-Host at This Year’s Global Citizen Festival

Becky G is thinking globally…

The 22-year-old Mexican American singer/rapper and actress will serve as a co-host at this year’s Global Citizen Festival, taking place on September 28 at Central Parkin New York City.

Becky G

The event has been held in New York every year since 2012, and calls on music fans to take action on a number of important issues to earn tickets to the show. 

Global Citizen, a social advocacy group, hosts the festival to drive action toward its goal to end extreme poverty by 2030.

This year, Global Citizens are urged to pressure decision-makers to help end child marriage, support family planning, promote women’s entrepreneurship and shine a light on workplace safety.

In addition to Becky G, this year’s co-host roster includes Connie BrittonNina DobrevDakota JohnsonBecky Lynch,Aasif MandviBridget MoynahanKal Penn,Erin RichardsSeth Rollinsand Savannah Seller.

The lineup of performers includes David Gray, NCT 127Queen + Adam LambertPharrell WilliamsAlicia KeysOneRepublicH.E.R., and Carole King, with special guests French MontanaBen Platt, and Jon Batiste & Stay Human.

For the sixth straight year, MSNBCand Comcast NBCUniversalwill air a live simulcast of the event on MSNBC, and Ken Ehrlichand Live Nation will produce.

The festival will also be livestreamed on YouTubeand Twitter

Rivera to Perform at “Concert for America: Stand Up, Sing Out!” on Inauguration Day

Chita Rivera is standing up and singing out…

The 83-year-old half-Puerto Rican actress, dancer, singer and Broadway star will be spending inauguration day at a concert in New York City raising money for human-rights organizations.

Chita Rivera

Rivera, the first Hispanic woman and the first Latino American to receive a Kennedy Center Honors award, will perform at the Concert for America: Stand Up, Sing Out!

The event will be held at The Town Hall in Manhattan on January 20. It’s intended to be the first in a series of monthly benefit concerts and will be streamed live on Facebook.

In addition to Rivera, a two-time Tony Award winner, the lineup includes Kelli O’Hara, Brian Stokes Mitchell, Betty Buckley, Jessie Mueller and Billy Porter.

Others slated to perform include Sharon Gless, Andrea Martin, Bebe Neuwirth, Rosie O’Donnell, Rosie Perez, Caroline Rhea, Stephanie Mills and Charles Busch.

The concert is the brainchild of Seth Rudetsky and James Wesley, who also organized the Broadway for Orlando fundraising concert.

Mueller, currently starring in Waitress, will reach back to her Tony Award-winning role as Carole King to sing “Beautiful.” She hopes its message of love and tolerance resonates.

“Hate comes from a lack of love, so we can’t fight it with more of its own toxicity; we have to fill it with love,” she said. “There are really big things at stake. Things we can’t save or solidify or safeguard alone. We have to think bigger, we have to ask for help, we have to reach out to one another and band together. I hope this concert can be an example of that.”

Proceeds will benefit groups that protect civil rights, women’s health and environmental protection, including Planned Parenthood, Southern Poverty Law Center, National Immigration Law Center and The Sierra Club Foundation. Tickets range from $25 to $50.

Moreno Among the Recipients of This Year’s Kennedy Center Honors

Rita Moreno continues to rack up the honors…

The 83-year-old Puerto Rican actress, who received a Lifetime Achievement Award at last year’s SAG Awards, has been announced as one of recipients of this year’s Kennedy Center Honors.

Rita Moreno

Each year, the Kennedy Center recognizes a select group for their lifetime contributions to American culture through the performing arts with the primary criterion in the selection process being excellence. Honorees are chosen by the center’s board of trustees.

Moreno, a Grammy, Oscar, Golden Globe and Tony Award winner, will be honored along side Star Wars patriarch George Lucas, actress Cicely Tyson, songwriter Carole King, conductor Seiji Ozawa and the Eagles.

Moreno, who recently guest-starred on the CW’s Jane the Virgin, has previously received the Library of Congress Living Legends Award, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, a National Medal of Arts and the Latin Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award.

The event, a fundraiser for the Washington, D.C. arts center, will take place on December 6. CBS will broadcast the star-studded event on December 29.

Swizz Beatz to Co-Host Alicia Keys’ HIV/AIDS Charity Event Black Ball

Swizz Beatz is helping raising awareness about HIV and AIDS…

The 36-year-old half-Puerto Rican hip-hop artist and record producer is set to co-host his wife Alicia Keys’ annual charity event, which aims to shine a spotlight on HIV and AIDS.

Swizz Beatz

Keys announced Tuesday that her husband will co-host the 11th annual Black Ball alongside Diddy on October 30 at New York City’s Hammerstein Ballroom.

Keys, Nas, David Byrne and Angel Haze will perform.

Keep a Child Alive, Keys’ charity launched in 2003, offers assistance to people affected by HIV and AIDS in Africa and India.

Last year’s Black Ball raised $4 million and featured Carole King and Pharrell Williams.

Gloria & Emilio Estefan to Appear at This Year’s Tony Awards

Emilio and Gloria Estefan may be bringing their life story to The Great White Way in the near future… But first they’ll be appearing as part of Broadway’s biggest night.

The Estefans will be appearing at this year’s Tony Awards.

Gloria Estefan Emilio Estefan

In addition to the multi-Grammy winning musicians and producers, the upcoming ceremony, honoring the best of Broadway will also feature appearances by Bradley Cooper, Kevin Bacon, Carole King, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Will Ferrell, Liev Schreiber, Emmy Rossum, Kate Mara, Zachary Quinto, Zachary Levi, Lucy Liu, Clint Eastwood, Patricia Clarkson, Leighton Meester, Ethan Hawke, Zach Braff, Matt Bomer, Anna Gunn, Tony nominee Audra McDonald, Fran Drescher, Wayne Brady, Kenneth Branagh, Tony Goldwyn, Vera Farmiga and Alessandro Nivola, it was announced Tuesday.

Hugh Jackman will hosted this year’s show.

The 68th annual Tony Awards, presented by The Broadway League and the American Theatre Wing, will broadcast live from New York City’s Radio City Music Hall on June 8 on CBS.