This year she gets in through the musical excellence award. We monitor the performers vote and we do watch to see if there’s anything we need to balance.Ĭhaka Khan had been on the ballot in the performer category seven times – counting four times as the lead singer of Rufus and Chaka Khan – without being voted in. We are constantly updating every year to make sure we evolve with the music because we need voters in their 30s and 40s who were 15 years old when hip-hop began to really explode in the early ‘90s in America.ĭo you know who the seven performer inductees will be before you settle on the honorees in the other three categories ? What happens is the nominating committee’s list of nominees goes out to the general voting body of 1,200 people, which is made up of past inductees. I’m excited and proud of this diverse collection of artists. This year, Rage Against the Machine is right next to the first female hip-hop artist who has ever been inducted, Missy Elliott. It’s not like rock is no longer getting in. We’re seeing that all these sounds can live together. This class of inductees is a perfect case for really the diverse sounds that make up rock and roll. Some will say that the Rock Hall is struggling to find its new identity and purpose. It basically drove adults crazy, drove the government crazy, drove the church crazy and that’s exactly what hopefully the music that’s moving culture today is doing. If you look at rock and roll, it’s not one sound, it’s a spirit that moved teenagers in ’55. All I did was go back to the original definition and then trace it today – finding the artists that are moving culture and moving young America. Really, all roads lead back to 1955 and the creation and explosion of rock and roll. Six of the first 10 inductees were Black, and the following year Hank Williams was inducted and then Johnny Cash and then Brenda Lee. So, I saw an opportunity to really look back to the original genesis of rock and roll and trace it to the present, which is where hip-hop and R&B and the music that’s moving culture today all came from. It was an amalgam of R&B, gospel and country. Rock is a part of rock and roll, but rock and roll was never one sound. When I came in, I was seeing that some people were mistaking rock and roll for rock. When you became the chairman did you look at it and say, ‘This has to evolve or the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame is going to become a relic’? This conversation has been lightly edited for length and clarity. Sykes addresses this topic with the deep knowledge of a musicologist and the fervor of a man on a mission. The news announcement for this year’s Rock Hall inductees includes this definition of rock and roll which you can bet Sykes helped draft – “rock & roll is a spirit that is inclusive and ever-changing.” So, while some will say the Rock Hall should mostly be reserved for the likes of The White Stripes, Soundgarden, Warren Zevon and Iron Maiden, all of whom came up short in this year’s balloting, and will see this year’s class as a hodgepodge, Sykes sees it as an exciting return to the true meaning of rock and roll.
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