Rock Hall chairman on why Hall of Fame won’t be renamed

nme.com:

Eminem, A Tribe Called Quest, Mary J. Blige, Dolly Parton and Missy Elliott.The chairman John Sykes has spoken to Vulture recently, where he revealed that he has no plans to change the name, stating that instead he will “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 explained. “If you go back to the original sound in the ’50s, it was everything.

As Missy Elliott 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.”Sykes spoke about Jay-Z‘s initial reluctance to accept his own induction in 2021. “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.