Last night was Russell Simmons 14th Annual Art For Life Benefit.
It was held at a new location this year – Fairview Farms in Bridgehampton, and being partially outdoors with the ocean in the background, the mood was set as soon as you walked in the place.
But aside from the beautiful event space and location, Art For Life is all about the kids. Every year this event raises millions of dollars in hopes of providing inner city youth across NYC with exposure to the arts and exhibition opportunities to emerging artists. Last night, Art For Life honored Tyler Perry, Anne Pasternak, Walter Mosley, Sam Englebardt and William D. Johnson who all spoke about why Rush Arts is such an important charity to be a part of.
A lot of money was raised and there were tons of famous faces in the crowd. It was, by far, an epic event.
Here’s everything that went down, if you weren’t fortunate enough to be there…
Uncle Rush hit the red carpet with the beautiful Hana Nitsche:
and Aoki Lee and her cousin
Also in attendance were Maxwell
Anthony Anderson
Rick Ross & Kevin Liles
Estelle
Michael Strahan & Nicole Murphy
Star Jones
Danny Simmons, of course
Dina Lohan
Dina Manza
Tangie Murray [the woman behind it ALL]
Tyler Perry was honored
Estelle brought her London swag to the stage
then Rick Ross took the stage and totally turned it up
before Maxwell took the stage and totally turned it out [with Chloe Flowers on the piano and Miss Universe Olivia Culpo on the cello] – seriously, the performance was life changing
Here are some other famous faces that were in the crowd…
Tichina Arnold & Anthony Anderson
Miss Universe Olivia Culpo, Michael Strahan & Maxwell
Tichina & Melanie Fiona
Michael Strahan & Rev. Al Sharpton
Danny Simmons & Angela Simmons
Al Sharpton & Peter “Kid Chocolate” Quillin
Aoki Lee, Rick Ross & Ming Lee [how epic is this photo?]
The event was hosted by Soledad O’Brien
with tunes spun by DJ MOS [with the beautiful DJ Kiss on his arm]
Doug E. Fresh also made a surprise appearance at the end, bringing back some old school hip-hop flavor – before doing the dougie. It was awesome.
//instagram.com/p/cSy6mLynzu
And here’s some footage of Maxwell‘s performance
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PHOTO CREDIT: GETTY IMAGES