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R&B legend Patti LaBelle and rapper Common are set to perform at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago on Tuesday.
The two musical icons were both photographed earlier in the day rehearsing at the United Center.
They will follow last night’s opening performances from country singer Mickey Guyton and Americana artist Jason Isbell. James Taylor had also been expected to perform but his set was reportedly cut due to time restraints after the show overran and it came time for President Joe Biden to take the stage.
Tonight’s DNC proceedings will be hosted by commentator Ana Navarro, best known for her appearances on talk show The View.
The theme for the day is “A Bold Vision for America’s Future”, and high-profile speakers expected to fill the primetime slots include former president Barack Obama, former first lady Michelle Obama, Kamala Harris’ husband Doug Emhoff, and Illinois Governor JB Pritzker.
This is not LaBelle’s first time performing at the DNC. In 2004 she sang a memorable version of Sam Cooke’s civil rights anthem “A Change is Gonna Come”. She also performed at the White House earlier this year as part of Biden’s Juneteenth concert.
Common last performed at the DNC in 2020, which was conducted virtually due to the pandemic. That year, he and John Legend performed “Glory” from 2014’s Selma, which won the Oscar for Best Original Song.
Monday’s opening night of the DNC brought in significantly better ratings than the opening of the Republican National Convention last month, according to overnight data.
The DNC had 11.4 percent of sampled households watching in 44 major metro areas across seven networks on Monday, compared with the RNC’s 9.4 percent rating, a difference of over 20 percent, according to TV analyst Michael Mulvihill, president of insights and analytics at FOX Sports, FOX Entertainment, and Tubi.
In a statement on X, the analyst warned that the data was just preliminary.
“That DNC lead will likely narrow in the final national viewership and could even be erased, though that seems unlikely,” he wrote. “The overnights reflect 44 major metro areas.”
Some running the DNC surely were concerned that delays caused Joe Biden to give his highly anticipated convention speech at 11:25 pm on Monday, well past when some voters in East Coast battleground states like Pennsylvania were in bed.
That didn’t seem to make a huge difference, according to Mulvilhill.
“The late-running DNC show did not help viewership for President Biden,” he added on X. “The Biden portion rated slightly (-2%) lower than the pre-Biden portion and the President’s forceful speech lost audience as the hour grew later. Not ideal but not disastrous either.”
The initial, encouraging signs for the DNC come as Donald Trump is reportedly concerned Kamala Harris’s Thursday speech to close out the convention will outshine Trump’s RNC send-off.
