Watch Kendrick Lamar Induct N.W.A. Into The Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame

Watch Kendrick Lamar Induct N.W.A. Into The Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame

As anticipated, Kendrick Lamar inducted his Compton forebears N.W.A. into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame last night, making them one of the few rap acts in the Rock Hall along with Grandmaster Flash, the Furious Five, Run-D.M.C., the Beastie Boys, and Public Enemy. Kendrick has always been open about the group’s influence on him and his music and has worked extensively with Dr. Dre, and in his speech, he praised each member and spoke about the importance of N.W.A. and the meaning of gangster: “the fact that a famous group can look just like one of us and dress like one of us, talk like one of us, proved to every single kid in the ghetto that you can be successful and still have importance while doing it.”

Although N.W.A. didn’t perform at the ceremony — “Nah, we’re not performing. I guess we really didn’t feel like we were supported enough to do the best show we could put on,” Ice Cube told The New York Times earlier this week — all of the groups living members were present, and they each gave a speech following Kendrick’s introduction. Dre predicted that Kendrick himself would be inducted into the Hall in the future, DJ Yella brought Eazy-E’s mother out onto the stage, MC Ren responded to Gene Simmons’ anti-rap comments with “I wanna say to Mr. Gene Simmons that hip-hop is here forever. We’re supposed to be here,” and Ice Cube told the kids to stay in school and closed with “goddamn right we rock & roll.” You can read a transcript of Kendrick’s full speech here and N.W.A.’s acceptance speeches here via Rolling Stone or watch them all below.

Also, here’s Kid Rock inducting Cheap Trick:

And here’s Cheap Trick, Steve Miller, and Chicago (reunited not with Peter Cetera but with Rob Thomas for some reason) performing at the ceremony:

more from News