The stars came to Washington, D.C., on Sunday, December 3, to celebrate this year’s Kennedy Center Honorees: Dionne Warwick, Renée Fleming, Billy Crystal, Barry Gibb, and Queen Latifah, who became the first female rapper to win the prestigious award. The Honorees sat in the box tier with President Joe Biden and First Lady Jill Biden. Over the weekend they attended a reception at The White House and a dinner hosted by the State Department.
Among artists who paid tribute to the Honorees were Kerry Washington, Jay Leno, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Whoopi Goldberg, Cynthia Erivo, Sigourney Weaver, Clive Davis, Missy Elliott and Ben Platt. The ceremony, was hosted by previous honoree Gloria Estefan (who kicked off the show with her hit song “Get On Your Feet.” CBS and Paramount+ will air the 46th annual ceremony on Wednesday, December 27.
Dionne Warwick is known as a vocalist with impeccable phrasing and warmth who scored dozens of hit songs beginning in the 1960s. In the 1980s, she was one of the first celebrities to raise awareness about the AIDS epidemic. At the gala, her friend Gladys Knight performed “Say A Little Prayer” and Chloe Bailey sang “Walk on By.”
In 1985, Warwick teamed up with Gladys Knight, Elton John, and Stevie Wonder to record “That’s What Friends Are For,” a song that won two Grammys and raised millions of dollars for AIDS research. Choreographer and actor Debbie Allen, a 2021 Kennedy Center Honoree, remembered the time Warwick visited a pediatric hospital. “She was so overcome that she picked up one of the babies, gave them a hug and a kiss which created quite a stir because, by doing so, she dispelled the myth that you could catch AIDS through touch,” Allen recalled.
Queen Latifah is now the first female rapper to win a Kennedy Center Honor. With songs like “U.N.I.T.Y.” and “Ladies First,” she took on hip-hop at a time when it was even more male-dominated than it is today. Several female rappers came to the Kennedy Center to pay their respects including M.C. Lyte, Monie Love, Missy Elliott, and Rapsody.
Kerry Washington explained that, when she was 8 years old, Dana Elaine Owens “flipped through a book of names and chose one as her own: Latifah, an Arabic name meaning gentle, kind and pleasant. This is how she saw herself. And then at age 17, when it was time to create her professional moniker, she added the title Queen. And in doing so, this young black woman from East Orange, New Jersey, crafted the lens through which the world would forever see her.”
Several opera stars came out to show their appreciation of Renée Fleming, a five-time Grammy winner and U.S. National Medal of Arts recipient. Guinness World Records and Billboard list Barry Gibb as one of the two most successful popular songwriters of all time, alongside Paul McCartney; with his late brothers Robin and Maurice, the Bee Gees sold over 220 million records. Lin-Manuel Miranda performed a musical tribute to Billy Crystal, the nine-time Academy Awards host, Emmy, and Tony Award-winning comedian, actor, producer, writer and director.
