LOS ANGELES — Gospel duo Mary Mary will perform “Lift Every Voice and Sing" during Super Bowl LVI in Los Angeles on Sunday.
They will be accompanied by the LA Phil's YOLA (Youth Orchestra Los Angeles) and it will be conducted by Thomas Wilkins, Principal Conductor of the LA Phil's Hollywood Bowl Orchestra.
“We’re so excited to represent INGLEWOOD at #SBLVI with our performance of Lift Every Voice and Sing,” the duo wrote on an Instagram post. “Tune in. You won’t want to miss it!”
The big game between the Los Angeles Rams and Cincinnati Bengals is an unlikely matchup, but is sure to be a good one both on and off the field. The halftime show alone will be the first time five music icons with 44 Grammys between them will perform together on one stage. The show will include Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg, Eminem, Mary J. Blige and Kendrick Lamar.
WHO IS MARY MARY?
Mary Mary is comprised of sisters Erica Campbell and Trecina "Tina" Atkins-Campbell. They formed in 1998 and released their best-selling debut album, "Thankful," two years later. It featured the hit single "Shackles (Praise You)."
Mary Mary has sold more than eight million records worldwide and has been nominated for eleven Grammy Awards, winning four times, including once for Best Contemporary Soul Gospel Album, according to the Recording Academy.
WHAT IS 'LIFT EVERY VOICE AND SING?
"Lift Every Voice and Sing" is a hymn with lyrics by James Weldon Johnson and written in the late 19th century.
According to the NAACP, where Johnson was the leader at the time, the song is known as "The Black National Anthem." The organization said the song was "prominently used as a rallying cry during the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s."
They said James' brother, John Rosamond Johnson, composed the music for the hymn when he was the principal of a segregated school in Florida. It was first performed in public to celebrate President Abraham Lincoln's birthday.
WHAT ARE THE LYRICS?
According to Poets.org, here are the lyrics to the song:
Lift every voice and sing,
Till earth and heaven ring,
Ring with the harmonies of Liberty;
Let our rejoicing rise
High as the list'ning skies,
Let it resound loud as the rolling sea.
Sing a song full of the faith that the dark past has taught us,
Sing a song full of the hope that the present has brought us;
Facing the rising sun of our new day begun,
Let us march on till victory is won.
Stony the road we trod,
Bitter the chast'ning rod,
Felt in the days when hope unborn had died;
Yet with a steady beat,
Have not our weary feet
Come to the place for which our fathers sighed?
We have come over a way that with tears has been watered.
We have come, treading our path through the blood of the slaughtered,
Out from the gloomy past,
Till now we stand at last
Where the white gleam of our bright star is cast.
God of our weary years,
God of our silent tears,
Thou who hast brought us thus far on the way;
Thou who hast by Thy might,
Led us into the light,
Keep us forever in the path, we pray.
Lest our feet stray from the places, our God, where we met Thee,
Lest our hearts, drunk with the wine of the world, we forget Thee;
Shadowed beneath Thy hand,
May we forever stand,
True to our God,
True to our native land.