October 15, 2007 at 10:34:00 AM | more stories by this author
Ludacris, Corinne Bailey Rae, Razorlight, Jamelia, and Goo Goo Dolls also lined up for World AIDS Day concert in Johannesburg.
At 89 years old, Nelson Mandela still has plenty of clout.
Two weeks after the former South African president announced that 46664, the AIDS/HIV awareness campaign he founded in 2002, would hold its first-ever concert in Johannesburg on Dec. 1, the group unveiled the lineup for the show. It includes Annie Lennox and Peter Gabriel, two longtime supporters, as well as Ludacris, Corinne Bailey Rae, Razorlight, Jamelia, and Goo Goo Dolls.
The concert, to be held on World Aids Day at Johannesburg's 50,000-capacity Ellis Park Stadium, is the first of the five 46664 concerts to be held in Johannesburg. 46664 is named for Mandela's prison number during his 18-year confinement on Robben Island as a political prisoner in South Africa.
Lennox and Gabriel, both founding 46664 ambassadors, appeared at the inaugural concert in Cape Town in November 2003 and again when Mandela took his message to the Arctic Circle with a historic concert in Tromso, Norway in June 2005.
Lennox recorded the song "Sing" with a choir from the Treatment Action Campaign for her new album, Songs of Mass Destruction, as part of her ongoing commitment to highlighting the spread of HIV/AIDS, particularly mother-to-child transmission of the disease. It is the start of a project, also called SING, aimed at working with female artists to raise money and awareness about the pandemic.
On "Sing," the so-called "Choir of 23" included Madonna, Joss Stone, Anastacia, Celine Dion, Angelique Kidjo, Dido, Gladys Knight, Sarah Mc Lachlan, k.d. lang, Pink, Shakira, and the Sugarbabes.
Additional concert details, including the South African artist lineup, will be announced later this month.






