Cher, A Tribe Called Quest and Dave Matthews Band join Rock hall

Superstar power arrived early at the 39th Rock & Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony in Cleveland on Saturday night, as Cher strode onstage and joined Dua Lipa, who opened the show with “Believe,” the 1998 dance-pop smash that revitalized Cher’s career.

In a candid, conversational acceptance speech, Cher joked about her long wait to induction (she was first eligible more than three decades ago), telling the crowd at the Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse and those streaming the show online, “It was easier getting divorced from two men than it was getting in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.” She assessed her own vocal abilities (“I’m a good singer. I’m not a great singer,” she decided, but added, “I changed the sound of music forever”), and reflected on the many reinventions that have sustained her career across 60 years.

“My life has been a roller coaster, and the one thing that I have never done is I never give up,” Cher, 78, said, addressing women directly: “We’ve been down and out, and we keep striving, and we keep going, and we keep building, and we are somebody. We are special.”

Perseverance was a recurring theme across the 51/2-hour ceremony, which also honored two mainstays of the ’70s and ’80s: funk and disco powerhouse Kool & the Gang and pop-rock band Foreigner.

Peter Frampton, 74, who is battling the degenerative muscle disease called inclusion body myositis, thanked David Bowie for rescuing him from a low point – “I had no idea what a huge gift David was giving me” – and performed a short set from a chair.

Mary J. Blige, 53, spoke about having faith throughout her ups and downs (“You don’t have to wait until you’re perfect to feel worthy. You are worthy”) before a sterling three-song performance.

And Ozzy Osbourne, 75, who has paused touring because of health challenges, appeared onstage in a suitably sinister black throne adorned with skulls and bat wings to offer a brief collection of thank yous and introduce a rendition of his de facto theme song “Crazy Train” with a raucous shout of his famed intro line, “All abooooard!”

A cast of rockers turned up for the performance honoring Osbourne, including admirers like Billy Idol, Jelly Roll and Tool singer Maynard James Keenan. But the most infectious enthusiasm of the segment, and possibly of the night, came from Jack Black, who inducted Osbourne and reminisced about how when he first heard “Blizzard of Ozz,” Osbourne’s 1980 solo debut, “heaven opened up above me.” Black punctuated the memory with a roaring, red-faced rendition of the title line from opening track “I Don’t Know” that perfectly captured the heavy-metal madness of the honoree – and the way that the Hall, at its best, can bring the culture-shaping contributions of the artists it recognizes to life.

The segment devoted to A Tribe Called Quest gave the night its emotional peak.

In his speech honoring the Queens quartet, comedian Dave Chappelle credited the group with revolutionizing hip-hop aesthetics in the 1990s, calling their emergence a “cue for everybody that you could be cool and not necessarily gangster,” and mourned the loss of Phife Dawg, the member who died in 2016 at 45, from complications of diabetes.

Rapper-producer Q-Tip’s expansive speech also honored Phife and commemorated the “spark that burned within the four of us boys in 1985 in New York City.” Gratitude flowed, with Chappelle thanking the group for inviting him to join them on “Saturday Night Live” in 2016, marking his return to television after “12 years in the cold” and Busta Rhymes – who revived his fierce, star-making verse from “Scenario” during a jubilant medley of Tribe classics that also featured Common, Queen Latifah, De La Soul and the Roots – saying from the stage, “You gave birth to me, Tribe.”

The final induction of the night was offered not by a musician, but an Oscar-winning actress: Julia Roberts, who unpacked her longtime Dave Matthews Band fandom in a lengthy, passionate speech that praised the group’s “joyous, spontaneous abandon.”

Harking back to his pre-fame bartending gig at Miller’s, a jazz-focused club in Charlottesville, Virginia, Matthews, 57, emphasized how much he had looked up to his future bandmates Carter Beauford and LeRoi Moore, who died in 2008. (Earlier in the night, he had performed “A Pirate Looks at 40” for Jimmy Buffett, who received an honor for musical excellence along with Dionne Warwick, MC5 and Motown producer and songwriter Norman Whitfield.)

Matthews shouted out other key members of the scene – including Miller’s owner Steve Tharp, in attendance – gushed about his fellow inductees and concluded, “I just screwed up the whole speech.” But the group wasn’t done yet. Matthews said it was going to offer “some going away music,” grinning as he played a repetitive riff on his acoustic guitar and the band broke into a spirited cover of Talking Heads’ “Burning Down the House.”

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.