This year’s honorees included iconic rocker Roger Daltrey, CBE, who received the “Mattie J.T. Stepanek Peacemaker Award,” and LL Cool J, who was the recipient of the “Humanitarian Award.” “This is amazing,” Rodgers said. “We were just talking backstage and we thought that it was so unique or coincidental that all of our major charities are youth-oriented charities, so I couldn’t be happier.”
Rodgers continued, “What we do is we amplify teens’ messages. Right now, we work with more than 200 non-government organizations (NGOs) around the world. Our dialogue was already in progress, and it was happening around the same time as our GALA, which is perfect timing. In the music business, I always talk about something called convergence, where I do the best job I can, but there are forces out in the universe that I can’t control that make things happen, that I have nothing to do with. When the dialogue started with the Parkland teens, I personally, didn’t start the dialogue. It’s because our organizations exist in the same orbit.”
On the impact of technology on the music industry, Rodgers said, “I think technology is a great thing. I always think progress is a good thing. We have to figure out how to use it. I was talking earlier to a friend of mine, and he came up with such a great quote. He said that ‘technology can be beautiful and diabolical, just like people’.”
In 2017, Nile Rodgers was inducted into the coveted Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, where he received the “Award for Musical Excellence.”
For more information on the We Are Family Foundation, check out its official website, and their Facebook page.
To learn more about Nile Rodgers, check out his website.
Read More: Digital Journal’s full coverage of the 2018 We Are Family Foundation (WAFF) GALA.
