Kate Bush, Sheryl Crow, Missy Elliott, George Michael, Willie Nelson, Rage Against the Machine, and the Spinners will be inducted into The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in the Performer category. Chaka Khan, Al Kooper, and Bernie Taupin will receive the Musical Excellence Award, DJ Kool Herc and Link Wray will be presented with the Musical Influence Award, and Don Cornelius is getting the Ahmet Ertegun Award, Billboard reports. Rolling Stone is angry - the classic rock media insists heavy metal should get its proper number of places in the Hall of Fame.

Great musicians nominated for induction into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame as part of the class of 2023: Iron Maiden, George Michael, Soundgarden, Missy Elliott, Rage Against the Machine, A Tribe Called Quest, Kate Bush, Sheryl Crow, the White Stripes, Cyndi Lauper, Warren Zevon, Willie Nelson, and the Spinners. Joy Division and New Order are nominated together for first-time Rock Hall consideration.

"I look at Rage and go, like, 'Fuck, we rely on an audience.' You go to Rage shows to see the audience as much as to see the band, and we need that. We're one of those bands that need that" - Rage Against the Machine bassist Tim Commerford told TooFab. He added - "We'll never be one of these sellouts that's gonna go play a drive-in show or play a venue that holds a hundred thousand people and there's only ten thousand people there. That's bullshit. Rage will never do that. It's not a good show unless the audience is going off too. It's gotta be a shared experience". In other RATM-related news, band's guitarist Tom Morello recently discussed his friendship with Ted Nugent, "known in the world" as "this right-wing caricature", as opposed to "the guy who shredded on 'Cat Scratch Fever'". They're friends because “It’s going to be things that Tom Morello and Ted Nugent have in common. I went down this long list: free speech advocates, love of rock & roll, respect for black artists who’ve created rock and roll. And the second, was things Ted Nugent taught an adolescent Tom Morello about sex”.

Rage Against the Machine, Jay-Z, Foo Fighters, Kate Bush, Chaka Khan, DEVO, Iron Maiden, The Go-Go’s, Carole King, New York Dolls, Tina Turner, Dionne Warwick, Fela Kuti, Mary J. Blige, Todd Rundgren, and LL Cool J are the nominees for Rock & Roll Hall of Fame's 2021 class. The inductees will be announced in May, CNN reports.

The 'Killing in Thy Name' project is a RATM collaboration with a collective of international artists called The Ummah Chroma (“communities of color”), which seeks to be “a fire escape from the fiction known as whiteness and a spring for discovery". The better part of the 15-minute docu features footage of a teacher and some schoolchildren learning about the west’s dark history of slavery, manifest destiny, and the very concept of “whiteness” within the context of America, Loudwire reports. The film is spliced with quotes from members of the band, and their song 'Killing in the Name'.

Former The Animals frontman Eric Burdon bashed Donald Trump after the American president used 'House of the Rising Sun' during a recent campaign event. “Even though nobody asked my permission, I wasn’t surprised to learn that #Trump #864511320 used #HouseoftheRisingSun for his rally the other day” Burdon wrote on Instagram, and scored - “A tale of sin and misery set in a brothel suits him so perfectly!”. In similar politics news, Rage Against the Machine's guitarist Tom Morello told Interview Magazine, ironically, that the band were responsible for Trump becoming president: "I would say that we are karmically entirely responsible, and my apologies". Morello is referring in part to the band's 'Sleep Now in the Fire' music video from 1999, which briefly includes an extra holding up a sign that says "Trump for President". "It's funny how that became an offhand joke. Offhand joke would be a good hashtag for 2020" - Morello says.

System Of A Down frontman Serj Tankian tweeted shortly “simply awesome” responding to a viral video of Nigerian wedding guests rocking out to the band’s 2001 hit ‘Toxicity’. The short clip features revellers headbanging and singing along to the track, to which Rage Against The Machine guitarist Tom Morello said "there's hope".

Rage Against the Machine music was streamed over 11 million times in the last week, a 62% increase, caused by the renewed interest for their music amid the protests in the U.S., Billboard reports. The band’s 1992 single 'Killing in the Name' accounts for 2.4 million of those streams alone, which places the song at No. 3 on Hard Rock Digital Songs Chart and No. 21 on the Hard Rock Streaming Songs Chart. 'Bulls on Parade', meanwhile, has been streamed 1.4 million times in the last week. The band’s catalog, which features four studio albums released between 1992 and 2000, earned 11,000 equivalent album units in the June 5-11 tracking week, a boost of 24%.

SoundCloud producer DJ Skarface has shared ‘Rage The Jewels’, a mash-up mix that pairs Run The Jewels instrumentals with De La Rocha’s RATM vocals. RTJ's El-P gave his approval to the project on Twitter as he tweeted “oh shit” while sharing a link to Skarface’s SoundCloud mix. Skarface has made a version of ‘Rage The Jewels’ with separated tracks available for free on Bandcamp. A name-your-price download option is also available, with proceeds from the downloads going to the National Lawyers Guild.

Rage Against the Machine were a target to some fan criticism due to band's "political opinions", with one fan saying "music is my sanctuary and the last thing I want to hear is political bs when i’m listening to music". RATM's Tom Morello answered kindly - "Scott!! What music of mine were you a fan of that DIDN’T contain 'political BS'?. I need to know so I can delete it from the catalog". Lawyer Elisabeth Ryan, Morello's Harvard colleague, was more straightforward saying - "What machine did you think they have been raging against for decades? The Ice cream machine? The ATM? Lawnmowers?".