Carole King, Jay-Z, and LL Cool J Enter the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame

On Saturday night in Cleveland, the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame returned with some aplomb after last year’s ceremony was conducted virtually owing to the coronavirus pandemic. From musical icons to award-winning actors, controversial comics, and even a former president, all of the stars lined up to pay homage to the latest batch of inductees in the performer, early influence, and musical excellence categories.

There were more than a few raised eyebrows and angry texts back in May when the Hall of Fame whittled its longlist down to a few lucky recipients. The ballot announced in February was one of the most diverse in the history of the Hall of Fame, including seven female acts, an Afrobeat pioneer, and legends of punk, new wave, and heavy metal.

Instead Kate Bush, Mary J. Blige, and Chaka Khan missed out, as did Fela Kuti, the New York Dolls, Devo, and Iron Maiden. But Carole King and Tina Turner received their belated dues as solo artists, even though King was inducted with her songwriting partner Gerry Goffin in 1990, while Turner was inducted for her incendiary R&B antics with Ike in 1991. And while Jay-Z was granted induction in his first year of eligibility, after six close calls the hip hop innovator and multi-hyphenate LL Cool J finally received a pass in the form of a well-deserved Award for Musical Excellence.

Established in 2000 as an award for sidemen, those musicians and producers who have made a lasting contribution to the game while staying resolutely out of the spotlight, since 2010 the Award for Musical Excellence has served as a more flexible category, allowing the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame to fill unseemly gaps in its honour roll. Joining LL Cool J in the class for 2021 were the guitarist Randy Rhoads and the keyboardist Bill Preston.

Meanwhile Kraftwerk, the towering krautrock band who had also been nominated six times, at last gained access to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame via the category for early influences. Previously the bracket had served for influential artists who predated rock and roll, like Jimmie Rodgers, Robert Johnson, Louis Jordan, Ma Rainey, and Sister Rosetta Tharpe. This year however the category was expanded to include other innovative acts who might be excluded from the main performing class, with Kraftwerk and the spoken-word poet Gil Scott-Heron joining the Delta bluesman Charley Patton.

The headline act for the performing class of 2021 was Carole King, though the ceremony in Cleveland opened more with an ode to her prowess as a songwriter. ‘Will You Love Me Tomorrow’, a number one hit for The Shirelles at the beginning of 1961, received an ambling synth cover from Taylor Swift more in line with King’s own rendition of the song on her 1971 album Tapestry, reducing the passionate entreaty to performative mush. Swift then delivered the induction speech for King, describing her music as one of ‘sage wisdom’ and ‘gentle comfort’ before calling Tapestry ‘a watershed moment for humans in the world who have feelings’.

For her own part, King said ‘I keep hearing it, so I guess I’m going to have to try to own it, that today’s female singers and songwriters stand on my shoulders’, saving a special word for Aretha Franklin as the first female Hall of Fame inductee. The sentiment was echoed by the The Go-Go’s, whose bassist Kathy Valentine said after a beatific introduction from Drew Barrymore:

‘By honouring our historical contribution, the doors to this establishment have opened wider. Because here is the thing, there would not be less of us if more of us were visible.’

The classic quintet of Belinda Carlisle, Charlotte Caffey, Jane Wiedlin, Kathy Valentine, and Gina Schock proceeded to stomp and sneer through their hits ‘Vacation’, ‘Our Lips Are Sealed’, and ‘We Got the Beat’. Jennifer Hudson joined Swift in paying her respects to Carole King, with a stirring rendition of ‘(You Make Me Feel Like a) Natural Woman’, while Christina Aguilera, Mickey Guyton, H.E.R., and Keith Urban performed a medley for Tina Turner, who did not attend the ceremony. Nor did the famously reclusive pop maestro Todd Rundgren, who was inducted to the Hall of Fame in a taped segment by Patti Smith.

Perhaps the most animated introduction of the night came courtesy of Dr. Dre, who inducted LL Cool J with an energy usually reserved for his stints behind the turntables. Blending personal anecdotes with snippets of informative mythmaking, Dre spoke of shared traumas and family bonding on a boat out on the Mediterranean Sea, noted that LL was the first artist to define the acronym ‘GOAT’ for ‘Greatest of All Time’, and brought it all back home with references to his roots in New York and the enduring influence of his debut album Radio.

LL in turn made humility the theme of his speech. Thanking everyone from his wife Simone to the business manager who refuses to allow the star a new pair of Converse sneakers, he paid tribute to his fellow hip hop pioneers Marley Marl and Kool Moe Dee, and saved a special shoutout for Canibus, whose early exposure on the LL track ‘4, 3, 2, 1’ kicked off a legendary feud between the two artists. After words from his longtime crew members E Love and DJ Cut Creator, the rapper closed his speech adding:

‘Rock and roll, hip hop loves you. We borrow your beats, we sample ’em, we turn them into hits. And we know where we came from, we know where things come from.’

Taking the stage with his usual gusto, LL was joined by Eminem for a boisterous rendition of ‘Rock the Bells’ before the silky smooth crooner revived his old chemistry with Jennifer Lopez, as they shared bars of their chart-topping 2003 single ‘All I Have’. The Ahmet Ertegun Award for non-performers went to the music executive Clarence Avant. And Brandi Carlile helmed the in memoriam segment with a slow-moving take on the Everly Brothers classic ‘All I Have to Do Is Dream’.

That left the final two inductees of the evening, with the Brooklyn native Jay-Z receiving an elaborate video introduction which featured his wife Beyoncé, Chris Rock, Lebron James, and none other than the 44th president of the United States Barack Obama, who said:

‘I’ve turned to Jay-Z’s words at different points in my life, whether I was brushing dirt off my shoulder on the campaign trail, or sampling his lyrics on the Edmund Pettus Bridge on the 50th anniversary of the Selma march to Montgomery.’

Dave Chappelle delivered the in-person introduction in his home state of Ohio, opening with a reference to the ongoing controversy over his recent Netflix special The Closer, with the comic standing accused of making transphobic remarks. In his acceptance speech Jay-Z, who spurned the sequins and sparkles and plaid and lace of some of his fellow inductees for a simple tuxedo in midnight blue, reminisced on the past and paid tribute to some of his mentors and peers, including LL Cool J, Rakim, Chuck D, and KRS-One. The rapper said:

‘Growing up, we didn’t think we could be inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. We were told that hip hop was a fad. Much like punk rock, it gave us this anti-culture, this subgenre, and there were heroes in it.’

As the ceremony spilled over, a short speech from Paul McCartney inexplicably served to induct Foo Fighters, with Dave Grohl like King and Turner becoming a two-time inductee after Nirvana ascended the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame back in 2014. The band blasted through a barrage of their hit songs, performing ‘The Best of You’, ‘My Hero’, and ‘Everlong’ before McCartney joined them up on stage for a cover version of The Beatles anthem ‘Get Back’.