Lauryn Hill, Wyclef Jean to Headline Global Citizen Festival
The Fugees bandmates will join Lenny Kravitz, John Legend and others at the Sept. 26 antipoverty concert in Central Park.
Ms. Lauryn Hill and her Fugees bandmate Wyclef Jean will headline this year's Global Citizen Festival, organizers announced Thursday.
The free concert, held annually in New York's Central Park, rallies attendees to pressure world leaders into funding antipoverty initiatives timed to the United Nations General Assembly's high-level meetings. This year's festival is set for September 26.
Joining Hill and Jean on the bill are Lenny Kravitz, John Legend, Lainey Wilson, Shaboozey and the K-pop group TOMORROW X TOGETHER.
The Fugees reunion comes as the group marks the 30th anniversary of their album "The Score" with performances in London and Rio de Janeiro, where they closed out Global Citizen's climate programming.
This year's festival follows Global Citizen's production of the World Cup's first halftime show, a collaboration that helped raise more than $60 million for an education fund launched with FIFA. Co-founder Hugh Evans said he hopes to use next month's event to secure additional commitments from governments.
Festivalgoers earn entry by taking actions such as petitioning countries to increase international development spending. This year's priorities include raising $100 million to provide 2 million children with education, food and healthcare; gathering $100 million for food security among 1.5 million smallholder farmers; and moving $1.5 billion to expand clean energy in the Indo-Pacific.
Countries facing appeals this year include Spain, Norway, Ireland, Kenya, Japan, Denmark and Australia. Evans specifically called on France to back education funding initiatives, questioning whether French President Emmanuel Macron's rhetoric on education matches his government's actions.
The United States is not on this year's list of countries being targeted. Evans said the U.S., once the world's largest aid donor, is now "an incredible laggard" after the administration "butchered its entire foreign aid budget" and dismantled the U.S. Agency for International Development.
Fans can enter a free ticket lottery through the Global Citizen app or gain automatic entry with a $25 donation benefiting New York's City Parks Foundation and homelessness services organizations.
This article was produced with the assistance of artificial intelligence (AI), in accordance with our editorial policy.
