The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame's 39th annual induction ceremony turned Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse in Cleveland, Ohio, into a “celebration” Saturday night as Kool & the Gang, Dave Matthews Band, Mary J. Blige, A Tribe Called Quest and Cher showed up to receive invitations from Chuck D, Julia Roberts, Method Man, Dr. Dre, Dave Chappelle and Zendaya.

The event returned to the Rock & Roll Museum's hometown for the first time since 2021. This year, the music industry's top honor in the artist category went to Mary J. Blige, Cher, Dave Matthews Band, Foreigner, Peter Frampton, Kool & The Gang, Ozzy Osbourne and A Tribe Called Quest. Musical Excellence Award recipients included Jimmy Buffett, MC5, Dionne Warwick and Norman Whitfield; Alexis Korner, John Mayall and Big Mama Thornton received the Musical Influence Award. Motown manager Suzanne de Passe received the Ahmet Ertegun Award – the fifth woman to accept the award.

Four of the eight new entrants in the Performer category were on the ballot for the first time: Cher, Foreigner, Kool & the Gang and Peter Frampton.

“We’re swimming in deep water here,” Matthews says of the 2024 class.

The five-and-a-half-hour ceremony combined moving speeches and career highlights with performances that consistently brought the sold-out house to its feet. The dynamic of the event is based on the surprise of who will perform with whom. This year saw a mix of newcomers and those following in her iconic footsteps: Dua Lipa joined Cher, and Ella Mai and Lucky Daye both dueted with Mary J. Blige. Kelly Clarkson, Demi Lovato, Chad Smith, Slash and Sammy Hagar, along with James Taylor, Mac McAnally and Kenny Chesney, formed a Foreigner supergroup to pay tribute to their late friend Jimmy Buffet. Smith returned to introduce Ozzy Osbourne and performed with Maynard James Keenan, Jelly Roll, Billy Idol and others. Jack Black did the honors for Osbourne, who took in everything from a “bat” chair.

Below are the best moments from the 2024 Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inductees, streaming now on Disney+ and airing January 1 on ABC.

Cher's change of heart

To kick off the evening, Dua Lipa took the stage in a long black leather dress with delicate chains over fishnet stockings and performed Cher's anthem “Believe.” Then Cher joined Dua in leather chaps, and the duo shook hands in triumph and sang the chorus of the 1998 comeback song. Zendaya gave Cher's introductory speech in a Bob Mackie nude illusion halter dress that referenced one of the icon's classic 1975 looks. The actress said of the superstar, who had not received a Hall of Fame nomination until this year, “Cher's got the goods,” drawing attention to the fact that Cher is the only solo artist to do so in each of the last seven decades had a No. 1 hit and calls her “the coolest woman on the planet.” Cher's video tribute reel included soundbites from Tina Turner, Cyndi Lauper and Pink.

Cher began her acceptance speech by addressing the elephant in the room: “It was easier to divorce two men than to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.” She made it clear that she has been for so many years long overlooked by the organization, telling Kelly Clarkson in 2022, “I wouldn't be there right now if they gave me a million dollars.”

She changed her mind and thanked David Geffen for bringing the award to the finish line: “I want to thank my guardian David Geffen because he wrote a letter and sent it to the directors and so I'm here. Thanks, David. Thank you for caring so much about me.”

Her theme throughout the speech was resilience. She detailed the ups and downs of her career, maintaining a sense of pride and self-worth that wasn't based on being the prettiest, smartest, or most talented in the room.

“I talk to the women,” she added. “We've been down and we've been down and we keep striving and we keep going and we keep building and we're somebody. We are special.”

Chuck D's Kool Pentameter

The Public Enemy frontman founded a group long overlooked in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame: Kool & the Gang. D's speech was pure poetry in the “Kool” rhythm, a soulful, funky riff of verbal praise.

He noted that “few artists have been sampled more by hip-hop producers than Kool & the Gang” and “let it be known: this is a long overdue celebration,” noting, “Y'all know the deal, birthdays, Weddings.”, sports, championships. You all know how it goes… It's about the thing, about the thing, about the thing… I just say, hey, hey, hey, we always think about good work, in wild and peaceful jobs. To get to the jungle boogie, go to the jungle boogie and say “Uh!” I wanted to rap on this record. And if that wasn’t enough, there was even more crazy stuff.”

Mark Ronson, Lionel Richie, Usher and Anderson. Paak took part in the video introduction.

Representing Kool & the Gang, James JT Taylor and Robert “Kool” Bell performed “Get Down on It,” “Jungle Boogie,” “Hollywood Swinging,” “Ladies' Night” and “Celebration.”

Dionne Warwick calls Teyana Taylor her “alter ego”

Teyana Taylor, who will play Dionne Warwick in an upcoming biopic, took the stage in a look reminiscent of the 1960s star, with a beehive hairstyle and an olive empire-waist dress with tassels.

“It wasn't until I got the role of a lifetime to play her in the upcoming biopic that I realized the depth of her talent,” says Taylor. “She has done an incredible service to the world with her music,” she said, calling “Don’t Make Me Over” an anthem for women around the world and acknowledging that Warwick pushed the Beatles off the charts.

“Mrs. Warwick didn’t come to play, period,” Taylor says. “What the world needs now is love, sweet love, but what it really needs is more of Ms. Dionne Warwick.”

Jennifer Hudson sang “I'll Never Love This Way Again” and Warwick also sang “Walk On By.”

As Warwick accepted her award from Taylor, she said, “Her alter ego is with me tonight.”

The Foreigner Super Group

You can always count on the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony to unite musicians in unexpected ways, and 2024 didn't disappoint in that regard as Demi Lovato, Chad Smith, Slash, Sammy Hagar and Kelly Clarkson came together to jam Foreigners in the absence of Mick Jones and Dennis Elliott. Lovato sang “Feels Like The First Time,” Hagar performed “Hot Blooded” and Clarkson duetted “I Want to Know What Love Is” with Lou Gramm. Jones' daughter accepted the recording on behalf of her father, who was associated with the Foreigner appearances stopped when he was diagnosed with Parkinson's in 2022.

Peter Frampton gets roasted and rocks

Roger Daltrey turned his speech about Peter Frampton into a roast by pointing out the rock god's lack of nominations and beginning his speech by saying, “I was amazed that this guy wasn't inducted 35 years ago.” Then he said, that Pete Townshend joked early on that hordes of screaming girls had mistaken Daltrey for Frampton and Townshend for Tiny Tim. before mocking him about his endless farewell tours. Frampton jammed with Keith Urban on “Do You Feel Like We Do,” the night’s signature guitar moment.

At the end of the show, Matthews included Frampton in his acceptance speech, telling the guitarist, “I think the world of you.”

Common, De La Soul, Queen Latifah and Busta Rhymes deliver the evening's performance in honor of a tribe called Quest

It began with Dave Chappelle taking the microphone to give what was arguably the most moving introduction of the night. He told the crowd that during a difficult time he read a Chinese proverb that reminded him of his friends in “A Tribe Called Quest” and the deep meaning of their friendship. “The best meal you can cook is made with ingredients you already have,” he said.

Chappelle continued: “A black boy in New York in 1985 couldn’t have even imagined being inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. And I don't think that was ever the point of A Tribe Called Quest. They met on a train. They met at school. They played basketball together. … They just used what they had. And the first thing they had was each other, as friends.”

He credits them with “integrating jazz and soul in a way that hip-hop had never seen before.”

Pulling a fact from the rock history book, he shared that Red Hot Chili Peppers' “Blood Sugar Sex Magik,” Nirvana's “Nevermind” and Tribe's “Low-End Theory” were all released on the same day, September 24, 1991 , were published. He also praised them for being cool but not gangster-like – sparking a new era for hip-hop.

Q-Tip and Jarobi White were present along with late member Phife Dawg's parents and wife, while fourth member Ali Shaheed Muhammad was not present. They all gave speeches before '80s and '90s hip-hop collective Native Tongues, featuring Busta Rhymes, The Roots, Queen Latifah, De La Soul and Common, paid tribute to their fellow performers with “Scenario,” “Bonita Applebum.” and “Can I Kick It?” Rhymes' “Scenario” drove the crowd to its feet in the name of the love of hip-hop.

Mary J. Blige's mutual admiration with Dr. Dre and Method Man

Dr. Dre and Method Man did the honors for Mary J Blige, who sang “Love No Limit,” “Be Happy” and “Family Affair” in collaboration with up-and-coming singers Lucky Daye and Ella Mai. Dripping in leather, latex and glittering stones, Blige had a head-to-toe look fit for royalty. Dre credited Blige with creating a whole new genre of music with her groundbreaking album “What's the 411?” Blige then expressed her respect for Method Man and Dre for helping her to GRAMMY and EMMY wins with their collaborative projects, including Best Rap Performance By A Duo Or Group for “I'll Be There For You / You're.” “All I Need To” from 1995 “Get By” and the halftime show of the Super Bowl 2022.

Julia Roberts advises not to google David Matthews

To close the evening, the Dave Matthews Band played all of their greatest hits following the introduction of “superfan” Julia Roberts, where she shared a failed Google search.

“Don’t Google David Matthews,” she shared that she came across a horrific story that the fake Dave Matthew was a man in his 60s in New Zealand who had suffered a stroke.

Then she found the right person… “I kept Googling and discovered – oh yeah, Adam Sandler's friends didn't know it wasn't mentioned – anyway he and Ashley have a winery, a cool label and a good price. Didn't know. And then it says, “When did Dave Matthews come out?” But that refers to when the band was, you know, a band for the first time. So these things happen when you name the band after yourself.”

In one of the biggest surprises of the night, DMB closed the evening with “Burning Down the House,” an homage to the 1983 Talking Heads album Speaking in tongues.

To be considered for a nomination for the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, an artist or band must have released their first commercial recording at least 25 years prior to the year of nomination.