Nicki Minaj Rocks Maya Angelou Poem At Concert To Air Friday With Pink, Sia, & Sting To Promote Unity [Video]

Nicki Minaj has taken a Maya Angelou poem and used it as a vehicle to provide the world with a powerful message about race relations and unity as part of a concert that included Bruce Springsteen, John Legend, Pink, Sia, Sting, and Smokey Robinson. The performance, in which Minaj read the poem by Maya Angelou, will be broadcast Friday, reported the New York Daily News.

Intended to address racial conflicts while encouraging unity, the concert was taped and will feature Nicki reciting the Maya Angelou poem “Still I Rise.” A&E Networks’ Shining a Light: A Concert for Progress on Race in America will also be broadcast on TV stations and iHeartRadio radio.

Minaj isn’t typically associated with poetry, but she showed that the Maya Angelou poem contained lyrics with special meaning for her.

“Does my sexiness upset you? / Does it come as a surprise / That I dance like I’ve got diamonds / At the meeting of my thighs?” read Nicki.

Minaj wowed fans in her recitation of “Still I Rise,” with fans describing the way that it seemed to resonate for her.

The other superstars performing also emphasized race relations. In addition, a speech by Morgan Freeman honored those who lost their lives in the terrorist attacks in Paris, mourning those who lost their lives while seeking to create unity in the nation.

“Tonight, as we mourn the loss of life in Paris, let us rededicate ourselves to erasing the hate and to creating an America where we can all move on up together toward justice, community, love, brotherhood, sisterhood and freedom,” said Freeman.

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The concert commenced with Bruce Springsteen and John Legend singing “American Skin (41 Shots).” The song was authored by Springsteen to focus on the 1999 police shooting death of Guinean immigrant Amadou Diallo. In addition to teaming up with Bruce, Legend teamed up with Pink. The two rocked out “Someday We’ll All Be Free.” Legend then helped wrap up the concert by uniting with Big Sean for “One Man Can Change the World.”

But Jill Scott also awed at the concert with the protest song “Strange Fruit.” Her performance was delivered while screens behind her showed lynching imagery.

The performances ranged widely, but what they shared was the desire to make a difference. The sold-out concert will benefit the Fund for Progress on Race in America through the United Way.

The choice of Nicki Minaj to recite the Maya Angelou poem was especially significant with regard to the goal of the event, reported the Guardian.

Taped Wednesday night in the Shrine auditorium in Los Angeles in order to send the message from the performers beyond those who could attend in person, the recorded event Shining a Light: A Concert for Progress on Race in America also included Alicia Keys, Ed Sheeran, the Zac Brown Band, and Miguel. A&E’s concert benefit seeks to do something about the racial conflicts in the nation.

Minaj is not the only celebrity to have chosen “Still I Rise” as the ideal Maya Angelou poem for sending a message. At his 1994 presidential inauguration, Nelson Mandela recited the same poem. In addition, he chose Maya’s books to help him survive during his imprisonment.

Pharrell Williams offered his perspective about the concert and how it could help to promote unity and end conflict.

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“Any solutions have to begin with dialogue, and we want to help get that dialogue going,” declared Pharrell.

The airing of the concert will last three hours on Friday night. Included will be town hall meetings as well as locations chosen specifically because racial conflict has occurred there recently. Those locales include Baltimore, where a response to Freddie Gray’s death in police custody occurred; Ferguson, Missouri, where protests followed Michael Brown’s death; and the Mother Emanuel AME church in Charleston, South Carolina, the area where eight people died in an attack associated with racial conflict.

[Photo by Christopher Polk/Getty Images for A&E Networks]