The Weeknd to receive humanitarian award at inaugural Music in Action Awards
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The Weeknd is set to receive the Quincy Jones Humanitarian Award at the Black Music Action Coalition’s inaugural Music in Action Awards on Sept. 23.
According to Billboard, the awards will honor musicians, music executives and music businesses that have made the most significant contributions to social justice, change, and/or equity in the last year.
Within the last year, The Weeknd, whose birth name is Abel Makkonen Tesfaye, has given millions of dollars to a number of causes, including the Black Lives Matter Global Network, the Colin Kaepernick Know Your Rights Legal Defense Camp, the National Bail Out Collective and MusiCares, which is the leading music charity supporting the health and welfare of the music community.
The Grammy Award-winning Super Bowl LV Halftime headliner also gave to hospital workers at the Scarborough Health Network in his native Canada amid the pandemic and announced that he would donate $1 million for hunger relief to his parents’ native Ethiopia.
The chart-topping “Blinding Lights” crooner also donated $300,000 to Global Aid for Lebanon campaign, a nonprofit charity set up to assist victims of the Beirut explosion that claimed more than 200 lives and left hundreds of thousands homeless.
The Music in Action Awards, set to take place at 1 Hotel in West Hollywood, will also present the Berry Gordy Social Impact Award, Clarence Avant Trailblazer Award and Agent of Change Award to other honorees.
“BMAC promised to work with the music industry to advance racial equity and are proud to have done everything we said we would do,” the organization’s co-chairperson, Binta Niambi, said in a statement. Now, while we celebrate the achievements of our industry, we also look forward to continued work with every company in our industry to eliminate all forms of systemic and structural racism. We welcome conversations with all who share our commitment to justice and equality and are enthusiastic about the change we will create together.”
