For this year’s Earth Day, an event called Earth Day Live will take place online over three days, and guests will include entertainers, politicians and activists. It will run from April 22-24.
This will be the 50th anniversary of Earth Day. At the event, guests will exchange ideas on how to preserve the planet. But there will also be an added focus on COVID-19.
“In the midst of a global pandemic, Earth Day Live aims to spur collective action to protect our communities and our planet through performances, conversations and training sessions curated by climate activists,” said the organizers in a joint statement.
Some of the guests include Questlove and Talib Kweli, who will put on livestream DJ sets.
Plus, Stacey Abrams, a former Democratic Georgia gubernatorial candidate, will hold a discussion on voter suppression. Angela Rye is also a scheduled guest, as is Malcolm X and Betty Shabazz‘s daughter Ilyasah Shabazz. Ndaba Mandela, Nelson Mandela‘s grandson, will participate too.
The three day event can be watched at www.earthdaylive2020.org or sites like YouTube, Twitter, Facebook and Twitch.
Some might say that Questlove joining the event as a DJ makes perfect sense, since he’s been putting on a number of well-received DJ sets on Instagram Live since people have been sheltering in place.
His sets have themes as well, whether he plays a bunch of Prince records, which he did earlier this week, or does as he did to celebrate the 50th birthday of A Tribe Called Quest’s Q-Tip by playing his records the previous week.
In late March, when Quest dedicated his set to Stevie Wonder on a night called “Stevland Saturday,” Wonder shocked him by phoning in out of the blue.
Quest has often talked about how much he idolizes the legendary musician.
“Hey everybody. I love you,” said Wonder to the hundreds of thousands of people who joined the Live session once Quest put him on speaker phone.
In regards to Earth Day Live, it will run each day from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. Eastern Time.