Time unveiled its annual list of the 100 Most Influential People for 2022 on Monday (May 23), and several musicians have made the esteemed list by securing spots in the artists, innovators, icons and pioneers categories for their achievements in the past year.
The 100 Most Influential People list is teeming with women this year — Adele and Mary J. Blige appear in the icons portion of the list alongside recent album of the year Grammy award winner Jon Batiste; Zendaya, Miranda Lambert and Michelle Zauner (Japanese Breakfast) take their place in the innovators section; Jazmine Sullivan and Ariana DeBose earned a spot in the artists section, while Questlove — who won an Oscar in March for his Summer of Soul documentary — appears in pioneers.
Adele’s blurb for the list was completed by talk show host James Corden, who praised the singer’s ability to put her all into a track. “She puts emotions into words, describing them in a way we never could ourselves,” he wrote. “She is raw, honest, and elegant all at the same time. It never feels like she sings to us. She sings for us.”
Nas was tasked with penning Blige’s blurb, and remarked on what set her apart from other R&B artists who were trying to come up in the ’90s. “She became a household name early because she was a hip-hop artist who also sang. The industry needed someone like that. The streets wanted that. Pop culture wanted that. And she was the one for it because she wasn’t made up. She was the girl around the way with the big earrings. She was like a spokesperson for a particular type of girl coming out of New York and coming out of the streets,” he wrote, also later commending her for her February performance at the Super Bowl Halftime Show.
This year’s honorees will gather and celebrate their achievements at the TIME100 Gala on Thursday, June 9. Lambert and Blige are set to take the stage at the event for separate performances, which will air live on ABC.
See how some of the Time 100 musician honorees reacted to their inclusion in the list below.