Human Rights Now 25th Anniversary

Bruce Springsteen released his first album in 1973, but it was his second album, The Wild, The Innocent & The E Street Shuffle later that year that led a rock critic to call him "the future of rock'n'roll." A year later Springsteen released Born to Run to critical and popular success, and he was a bona fide rock star, nicknamed "The Boss." In the '80s he released The River to huge success, and his 1984 album, Born in the U.S.A. was on top of the charts for seven weeks. In the '90s Springsteen left his back-up band and recorded solo, but by the end of the decade was touring with them again. Known for his songs about working-class Americans and for his generous and frequent live performances, Springsteen has been one of the top rock acts for nearly three decades.

Peter Brian Gabriel (born 13 February 1950) is an English singer, musician and songwriter who rose to fame as the lead vocalist and flautist of the progressive rock group Genesis. After leaving Genesis, Gabriel went on to a successful solo career. More recently he has focused on producing and promoting world music and pioneering digital distribution methods for music. He has also been involved in various humanitarian efforts.

Tracy Chapman is an American musician, singer and songwriter.

Sting (aka Gordon Matthew Thomas Sumner) is an English musician, singer-songwriter, activist, actor and philanthropist. Prior to starting his solo career, he was the principal songwriter, lead singer and bassist of the rock band The Police. Sting has varied his musical style throughout his career, incorporating distinct elements of jazz, reggae, classical, new age, and worldbeat into his music. As a solo musician and member of The Police, Sting has received sixteen Grammy Awards for his work, receiving his first Grammy for Best Rock Instrumental Performance in 1981, and an Oscar nomination for the best song. He is a member of both the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and the Songwriters Hall of Fame.

Youssou N'Dour (also known as Youssou Madjiguène Ndour; born 1 October 1959) is a Senegalese singer, songwriter, musician, composer, occasional actor, businessman, and politician. In 2004, Rolling Stone described him as, "perhaps the most famous singer alive" in Senegal and much of Africa and in 2023, the same publication ranked him at number 69 on its list of the 200 Greatest Singers of All Time. From April 2012 to September 2013, he was Senegal's Minister of Tourism. N'Dour helped develop a style of popular Senegalese music known by all Senegambians (including the Wolof) as mbalax, a genre that has sacred origins in the Serer music njuup tradition and ndut initiation ceremonies. He is the subject of the award-winning films Return to Gorée (2007) directed by Pierre-Yves Borgeaud and Youssou N'Dour: I Bring What I Love (2008) directed by Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi, which were released around the world. In 2006, N'Dour was cast as Olaudah Equiano in the film Amazing Grace. Ethnically, N'Dour is Serer, born to a Serer father and a Toucouleur mother. However, culturally, N'Dour is Wolof. He was born in Dakar. He started performing at age 12 and would later perform regularly with the Star Band, Dakar's most popular group during the 1970s. Despite N'Dour's maternal connection to the traditional griot caste, he was not raised in that tradition, which he learned instead from his sibling. Although patrilineally from the noble N'Dour family, his parents' world-view encouraged a modern outlook, leaving him open to two cultures and thereby inspiring N'Dour's identity as a modern griot. As a Mouride disciple, taalibé in Wolof, a Muslim of the Mouride brotherhood, one of the large four Sufi orders in Senegambia, he often incorporated aspects of Islamic music and chants into his work. At the age of 15, Youssou N'Dour joined Super Diamono and, in 1975, toured with the band in West Africa. In 1976 when N'Dour was 16 years old, he signed a contract to sing with Ibra Kasse's Star Band at Kasse's Miami club in Dakar where he would become a sensation. In 1978, N'Dour would follow as several members of the Star Band left to form Étoile de Dakar, a band that made important contributions to Senegal's newly evolving musical style called mbalax which incorporated traditional Senegalese music into the Latin styles that had dominated Senegalese popular music. Although they quickly became one of the city's most popular bands, the group was short-lived due to internal problems. Étoile de Dakar split into two groups: Étoile 2000 and Super Étoile de Dakar. The latter group included N'Dour, guitarist Jimi Mbaye, bassist Habib Faye, and tama (talking drum) player Assane Thiam. Super Étoile de Dakar produced four albums on cassette in just a few months and eventually evolved into N'Dour's backing band. By 1991, he had opened his own recording studio, and, by 1995, his own record label, Jololi. ... Source: Article "Youssou N'Dour" from Wikipedia in English, licensed under CC-BY-SA 3.0.