The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Inducts Tupac and Nile Rodgers

Tupac Shakur and Nile Rodgers are among the exceptional music talents that will be inducted into the 32nd annual Rock and Roll Hall of Fame ceremony next year.

Tupac will be honored along with Joan Baez, Electric Light Orchestra, Journey, Pearl Jam, and Yes, according to a press release. This will make him the fifth hip-hop artist to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, following Run DMC, Public Enemy, and N.W.A.

Meanwhile, Rodgers, a legendary music producer, musician, and guitarist, will receive the award for Musical Excellence.  Although he was nominated on 11 previous occasions, Rodgers described receiving the honor as “bittersweet,” since Chic, the successful disco band he co-founded in the 70’s, was snubbed.

“Even though I’m quite flattered that they believed that I was worthy, my band Chic didn’t win,” said Rodgers told Rolling Stone. “They plucked me out of the band and said, ‘You’re better than Chic.’ That’s wacky to me. The only reason why I met Bowie, and Madonna, and Duran Duran, and INXS is because they all loved Chic.”

Other 2017 nominees that did not make it into the hall include Janet Jackson, Chaka Khan, Depeche Mode, Jane’s Addiction, Bad Brains, and The Cars.

Besides helping to create Chic, Rodgers scored two recent major hits when he collaborated with Pharrell Williams for Robin Thicke’s “Blurred Lines” and Daft Punk’s “Get Lucky.”

Each year, inductees are determined by the votes of 900 historians, Rock Hall inductees, music artists, and members of the music industry. Artists, however, can only be inducted 25 years after the release of their first album or single. As a result, 2017 marks the first year that Tupac is eligible to join the institution, as his first album, 2Pacalypse Now

Last year, N.W.A., Cheap Trick, Steve Miller, and Chicago were inducted into the Hall of Fame.

The ceremony is set to take place April 7, 2017, at The Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York, and will air on HBO at a later date.