JAY-Z was initially hesitant to join the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and wanted the institution to rename it because he said the genre was “dead,” according to the organization’s leader.
In a recent interview with Vulture, Rock and Roll Hall of Fame President John Sykes revealed that JAY-Z would rather be inducted into the Hip Hop Hall of Fame as soon as his name appears on the ballot.
Sykes called for the Rock Hall to be renamed to reflect its expanded definition of the genre. Sykes quoted inductee Missy Elliott describing rock’s original sound as “gumbo” and stressed the need to “better engage with the people where rock and roll came from” before turning to Hough communicate”.
“The best story to convey this is when one of my good friends, JAY-Z, came on board a few years ago. I was so excited,” he recalls. “But he told me, ‘Rock and roll is dead. It should be called the Hip-Hop Hall of Fame.’ I said, ‘Well, hip-hop is rock and roll.
“He said, ‘No, it’s not.’ I said, ‘We have to explain it better. Little Richard, Otis Redding, Chuck Berry — these artists are the cornerstone of rock and roll. If you look at the sound over the years, these are the artists that ultimately influenced hip-hop.
Sykes explained that JAY-Z showed up when he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2021 despite “hemming and hawing.”
“It makes me feel like we’ve done our job and got the message out that rock ‘n’ roll is open to everyone,” the chairman concluded.
JAY-Z inducted into Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
JAY-Z joins the Foo Fighters, The Go-Go’s, Carole King, Todd Rundgren and Tina Turner as a member of the Class of 2021.
“This is an incredible honor,” he said in his acceptance speech. “Growing up, we didn’t think we could be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. We were told hip-hop was a fad. Like punk rock, it gave us this counterculture, this subgenre, and there’s hero.
