Chance The Rapper, Jason Moran to Perform at Gordon Parks Foundation Annual Awards Dinner & Auction Honoring Muhammad Ali

Chance The Rapper and Jason Moran will be delivering special tribute performances at The Gordon Parks Foundation Annual Awards Dinner and Auction, honoring boxing legend Muhammad Ali.

The gala is set for May 19 in NYC at Cipriani 42nd Street, and tickets are available, starting at $2,500. Proceeds from the evening will benefit the next generation of creatives through educational programming, fellowships, scholarships and prizes courtesy of The Gordon Parks Foundation.

“To be recognized in a space honoring Gordon Parks and Muhammad Ali is humbling. They told the truth through their work, and that’s always been the goal of mine too,” Chance tells Billboard. “The tribute to Ali is really about honoring that spirit and showing gratitude to his legacy.”

Chance is also among the list of honorees for the night, which includes Elizabeth Alexander, John Legend, Henry Taylor and Lonnie Ali (representing Muhammad Ali).

“It is an honor to work with The Gordon Parks Foundation because Parks truly understood the psyche of the musician,” Jason Moran adds to Billboard. “His sensitivity, not only with his camera, but with his ear.  He knows exactly when to snap the shutter, which informs the way he composes his music as well.  For Parks, the eye is also the ear, and the ear informs his eye.”

Former NFL star and activitst Colin Kaepernick will be a presenter alongside Darren Walker, Hank Willis Thomas, New York Times critic Salamishah Tillet and artist/photographer Deana Lawson.

It’s a star-studded group of co-chairs for the event that includes Swizz Beatz and Alicia Keys, Spike and Tonya Lee, Ben Stiller and Christine Taylor, Anderson Cooper, Malcolm Jenkins, as well as Crystal McCrary and Raymond McGuire.

The 2026 gala marks 20 years of celebrating the visionary photographer, Gordon Parks, through The Gordon Parks Foundation.

“Music played such an important role in Gordon’s life — he was a musician and celebrated composer as well as a photographer and filmmaker,” The Gordon Parks Foundation’s executive director Peter W. Kunhardt Jr. said in a statement. “To celebrate our 20th anniversary, we are thrilled that Chance The Rapper and our inaugural Gordon Parks Foundation Music Fellow Jason Moran will each pay tribute to the legacies of Gordon Parks and Muhammad Ali by performing on May 19. They both embody Gordon Parks’ belief that art can change the world.”