Amazon Music to stream ‘Free Larry Hoover’ Kanye West, Drake benefit concert
Thursday's concert, live from Los Angeles, can be seen on Amazon Prime Video, the Amazon Music app and its Twitch channel.
Amazon Music and Prime Video announced on Tuesday they will exclusively livestream this week’s “Free Larry Hoover” benefit concert, which features Kanye West and Drake.
The concert will be held at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, Thursday at 11 p.m. EST/8 p.m. PST. The event was announced on Nov. 20, just weeks after the two rappers squashed their beef, when Ye shared photos of them standing side by side, along with music mogul J. Prince.
“We’re extremely proud to be working with Kanye and Drake on this historic concert in support of a cause they are both so passionate about, and to collaborate across Amazon for this epic entertainment event,” said Jennifer Salke, head of Amazon Studios, via press release.
People will now be able to access the “Free Larry Hoover” event for free on Amazon Prime Video, the Amazon Music app and the Amazon Music Twitch channel. After it ends, the concert will be available to stream on-demand via Prime Video. Additionally, IMAX will livestream the benefit concert in selected theaters Thursday across the United States in an exclusive, one-night-only IMAX Live event.
Ye has dedicated the benefit concert to raising awareness of the need for prison and sentencing reform by supporting legal resource groups and community advocates, including organizations such as Ex-Cons for Community and Social Change, Hustle 2.0 and Uptown People’s Law Center.
In a statement announcing the concert, Ye said, “I Believe This Event Will Not Only Bring Awareness to Our Cause but Prove to People Everywhere How Much More We Can Accomplish When We Lay Our Pride Aside and Come Together.”
In a video shared by Prince on Nov. 8, West said, “I’m making this video to address the ongoing back-and-forth between myself and Drake. Both me and Drake have taken shots at each other, and it’s time to put it to rest.” He then invited the Canadian rap star to join him onstage “with the ultimate purpose being to free Larry Hoover.”
Hoover was a founding member of the Gangster Disciples, a Chicago street gang. He got a sentence of 150 to 200 years in prison for a 1973 murder and, in 1997, deemed to be continuing to run a criminal enterprise from prison, was given a life sentence. He is currently serving his sentence in isolation in a supermax facility in Colorado.
This summer, a judge denied Hoover’s bid to have his sentence reduced under the First Step Act, which was signed into law in 2018 with the purpose of cutting unnecessarily long federal sentences and improving conditions in federal prison, according to The Brennan Center.
“How do we explain to the court the oppressive conditions he’s in?” Hoover’s attorney Justin Moore asked The Chicago Sun-Times earlier this year. “Are prisons used to rehabilitate inmates or in a punitive fashion?”
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