LOS ANGELES — Salt-N-Pepa threw on their old tri-color leather jackets and brought the crowd to its feet with a romping rendition of "Push It," while the music of Outkast and the White Stripes and memories of late Soundgarden singer Chris Cornell moved the house on Saturday night at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony.
"This is for every woman who picked up a mic when they told her she couldn't," Cheryl "Salt" James said Saturday while accepting the musical influence award that made her, Sandra "Pepa" Denton and DJ Spinderella members of the hall.
In a rousing speech at the Peacock Theater in Los Angeles, James brought up their fight to reclaim their master recordings from Universal Music Group.
"The industry still doesn't want to play fair, Salt-N-Pepa have never been afraid of a fight," James said.
They took the stage for a medley of their hits. They opened with "Shoop" then slid into "Let's Talk About Sex" before En Vogue joined them for their joint hit "What a Man." "Push It" pushed the energy up another notch.
Spinderella became the first female DJ to enter the hall.
Outkast rocks the house, but not entirely together
Outkast didn't perform together for the first time since 2016 as some had hoped, but the duo stood together on stage, surrounded by a crew of friends and cohorts as they gave grateful speeches after doing rock-paper-scissors to decide who would go first.
Andre 3000 gave a long, rambling funny speech — "I'm freestylin' y'all!" — that ended in tears when he talked about their very beginnings in a basement "dungeon" in Atlanta in the early 1990s.
He choked out the words, "Great things start in little rooms."
Andre sat out the performance but Big Boi, wearing shorts and a fur coat, started off an express tour through the Atlanta duo's discography that included Tyler the Creator, JID and Killer Mike.
Janelle Monáe joined them to shake her way through "Hey Ya" and Doja Cat delivered a sly and soulful take on "Ms. Jackson."
In his speech inducting them, Donald Glover praised them as "two visionaries who turned their differences into a dynasty."
Emotional words and songs from Soundgarden
Emotions ran deep during Soundgarden's segment of the night, starting with the induction speech of Jim Carrey, the actor and Soundgarden super-fan who seemed to be fighting off tears throughout as he talked about Cornell, who died from suicide in 2017.
"When you looked into his eyes, it's like eternity was staring back," Carrey said. "For all time, his voice will continue to light up the ether like a Tesla coil."
Each of his bandmates, all major godfathers of the Seattle grunge scene, paid their own tearful tributes.
One of Cornell's daughters, Lilian, spoke for him while another, Toni, sang a quiet rendition of his song "Fell on Black Days."
"I am just really, really happy that he got to make music with his friends," Lilian Cornell said.
Taylor Momsen, who co-starred as a child with Carrey in "How the Grinch Stole Christmas," and Brandi Carlile showed serious vocal power with their versions of Cornell's mighty wail, backed by his bandmates on "Rusty Cage" and "Black Hole Sun."
Bassist Hiro Yamamoto was among the few who brought up the politics of the moment from the stage.
"Thanks to my parents, whose story is American citizens who are rounded up and placed into prison camps just for being Japanese during World War II," Yamamoto said to some of the biggest cheers of the night. "Well that affected my life greatly, and it really echoes strongly today. Let's not add another story like this to our history."
Twenty One Pilots and Olivia Rodrigo play for the White Stripes
The White Stripes reunion that some fans had hoped for didn't happen. Their induction was among the highlights of the night anyway. Twenty One Pilots brought the house down with a version of the duo's stadium-shaking anthem "Seven Nation Army" and Olivia Rodrigo and Feist doing a mid-audience acoustic version of "We're Gonna Be Friends."
Their fellow Detroit rock legend Iggy Pop began his induction speech by leading the crowd in a chorus of "Seven Nation Army" then remembered his thoughts on meeting them.
"Cute kids, they're gonna go places," Pop said. "And they did."
Drummer Meg White, who has led an almost entirely private life since the band broke up in 2011, did not show up for the ceremony, but Jack White said Meg, his ex-wife, helped him write the speech he delivered while wearing the band's signature red and white.
Jack White shouted out several great duos from across culture and said that kind of one-on-one collaboration is "the most beautiful thing you can have as an artist and musician."
He nearly cried several times as he told an Adam-and-Eve-like tale of "the boy and the girl" who made magic together, "knowing that they have shared and made another person feel something."
Sly Stone tribute, Bad Company induction open the show
Stevie Wonder led a funky and flashy tribute to the late Sly Stone to open the show that streamed live on Disney+, will be available on Hulu Sunday and will air in an edited version on ABC on Jan 1.
Wonder was joined Saturday night by Questlove, Leon Thomas, Maxwell, Beck and Flea from the Red Hot Chili Peppers for rousing renditions of Sly and the Family Stone hits "Dance to the Music," "Everyday People" and "Thank You." Jennifer Hudson joined them to wail through "Higher."
Stone, who was inducted into the hall in 1993, died in June. Brian Wilson, who died two days later, got his own tribute from Elton John, who took the stage late in the show to sing the Beach Boys' "God Only Knows."
Mick Fleetwood of Fleetwood Mac began the ceremonial part of the evening by inducting Bad Company. He called the British group founded by Paul Rodgers and Mick Ralphs in 1973 "classic rock legends."
Rodgers had to skip the ceremony because of health issues and Ralphs died earlier this year, so drummer Simon Kirke was the only member who took the stage. He was joined by an ad hoc super group, that blasted through a few of the super group's biggest hits like "Feel Like Makin' Love" and "Can't Get Enough."
Letterman inducts Zevon and the Killers play his music
The late singer-songwriter Warren Zevon was inducted by David Letterman, a friend and superfan who made Zevon a regular on his NBC late-night show, including an appearance when Zevon was dying of cancer in 2002.
"Warren Zevon is in my Rock & Roll Hall of Fame," Letterman said. "Actually, his own wing."
The Killers then played Zevon's "Lawyers, Guns and Money."
