Queen Latifah was in her dressing room on the set of the TV drama “The Equalizer” in Brooklyn when she heard the information: she had been chosen as a Kennedy Middle honoree.

“I used to be simply in shock for a second,” she mentioned in an interview. “I simply sat there and appeared out the window at New York Metropolis and thought ‘Wow, are you able to imagine this?’”

Billy Crystal was additionally caught off guard when he bought the decision. “After they mentioned, ‘Maintain on we need to discuss to you,’ I mentioned, ‘Oh, am I being audited?’ ” he recalled.

They may obtain the forty sixth Kennedy Middle Honors for lifetime creative achievement on Dec. 3 with Grammy-winning singer Dionne Warwick, the soprano Renée Fleming and the pop singer and songwriter Barry Gibb of the Bee Gees.

Queen Latifah, who is just the second hip-hop artist to be named an honoree (LL Cool J was honored in 2017), referred to as the accolade an overdue celebration of hip-hop’s contribution to the humanities in America. This yr’s gala — which generally attracts the President and different main officers — coincides with hip-hop’s fiftieth anniversary.

“It is going to enable us a second to be a part of the material of America, which is actually what we’re,” she mentioned. “It will likely be one night time the place the people who find themselves within the highest workplaces in essentially the most highly effective nation on this planet will honor hip-hop music and one in all its daughters.”

The Kennedy Middle Honors shall be broadcast at a later date by CBS and hosted by Gloria Estefan.

Crystal, the Tony and Emmy-winning comic and actor who was a forged member of Saturday Night time Reside and starred in movies together with “When Harry Met Sally” and “Metropolis Slickers,” mentioned in an interview that he started tearing up when he realized he had been chosen as an honoree.

Photos from his lengthy profession raced via his head: of telling jokes to his dad and mom as a child, of early gigs as a slapstick comedian in Greenwich Village, of the 9 instances he hosted the Academy Awards.

“I simply considered all of the individuals I labored with, all of the frustrations and ups and downs and middles,” he mentioned. “And it’s all condensed into listening to them saying you might be one of many honorees.”

Warwick, who captivated tens of millions with hit songs together with “Don’t Make Me Over,” “Stroll On By,” and “I’ll By no means Love This Approach Once more,” mentioned it was “about time” the Kennedy Middle gave her this honor for a lifetime of singing. “I’ve earned it,” she mentioned.

She added that singing “is the reward God gave me and I’m utilizing it the way in which he desires me to make use of it and in addition the way in which individuals need me to make use of it.”

Fleming, who has sung on the Metropolitan Opera and the world’s main opera homes and live performance halls, in addition to at Buckingham Palace, the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony and the Tremendous Bowl, mentioned she was driving again from a buying journey to Lowe’s when she heard the information that she had been chosen to be honored. She rapidly pulled over.

“It’s one thing you at all times dream about,” she mentioned.

Gibb, the one surviving member of the Bee Gees, which he fashioned together with his two brothers, mentioned he by no means imagined he can be an honoree.

The award made him consider his brothers; he recalled telling then when he was 8 years outdated that he wished to be a pop star.

“I keep in mind, on the road nook telling them that was what I wished to do, and so they mentioned, ‘Oh can we be pop stars too?’ ” he recalled. “It was a quite simple infantile dialog. And that was the choice. That was the turning level for us. We’d do it collectively.”

“I want they have been right here,” he mentioned, “so they might share this.”