With Dolly Parton and Eminem having been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in recent years, there’s been debate in some circles about the organization dropping the “rock and roll” part of its name. In a recent interview with Vulture, Rock Hall chairman John Sykes pushed back against the idea, saying it was important to “communicate that rock and roll is open to all.”
“I think it’s because some people don’t understand the meaning of rock and roll,” Sykes said. “If you go back to the original sound in the ’50s, it was everything. As Missy Elliot calls it, it was a gumbo. It just became known as rock and roll. So when I hear people say, ‘You should just change it to the Music Hall of Fame,’ rock and roll has pretty much covered all of that territory. Rather than throwing the name out, it’s doing a better job of communicating to people where rock and roll came from and what it’s truly about. Once they hear it that way, they understand.”
As an example, he pointed to JAY-Z’s initial pushback to being inducted a few years ago. “He told me, ‘Rock is dead. It should be called the Hip-Hop Hall of Fame,’” Sykes recalled. “And I said, ‘Well, hip-hop is rock and roll.’ He goes, ‘No, it isn’t.’ And I said, ‘We’ve got to do a better job explaining it. Little Richard, Otis Redding, Chuck Berry — these artists were the cornerstones of rock and roll. If you look at the sounds over the years, those artists ended up influencing hip-hop.’”
Though the rapper still “hemmed and hawed,” he decided to show up to the ceremony, making Sykes “feel like we had done our job to communicate that rock and roll is open to all.”
It’s worth noting that JAY-Z was far from the first rapper to enter the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. When the artist was inducted in 2021, he joined the likes of The Notorious B.I.G., Tupac, N.W.A., and Public Enemy. Since then, Eminem and Missy Elliott have followed in their footsteps.
The most recent Rock Hall ceremony took place this past October, celebrating Ozzy Osbourne, Cher, A Tribe Called Quest, and more. Sign up for Disney+ to watch it on demand.