One of Latin America’s biggest singing sensations will be joining the all-star line up at the city’s Aug. 21 Central Park concert celebrating the Big Apple’s comeback from the COVID-19 pandemic, Mayor Bill de Blasio announced Thursday.
Colombian pop great Maluma, a Latin Grammy Award winner who boasts 58 million Instagram followers, will take the stage alongside performers such as Bruce Springsteen, Paul Simon and Jennifer Hudson.
“This is a big deal to so many people in this city to have a star of this caliber to join an already-star-studded lineup,” de Blasio said during his daily press briefing, boasting of the scheduled appearance of the “global superstar” in the concert.
“This is going to make something that is amazing even more amazing,” he added. “It’s all about bringing us back together.”
Maluma — who the mayor noted is Latin America’s top selling artist — will be part of an eclectic line-up of stars from punk to rap to funk to opera produced by music legend Clive Davis.
Also on the line up will be Patti Smith, Carlos Santana, Earth, Wind & Fire, The Killers, LL Cool J, Andrea Bocelli, and even The New York Philharmonic, among numerous others.
The free Great Lawn show in Manhattan’s icon greenspace will cap off a week of concerts in the city’s other five boroughs.
The outer-borough concerts will begin Aug. 16 at Orchard Beach in the Bronx, followed by a Staten Island show on Aug. 17, a performance at Brooklyn Army Terminal two days later and a concert at Aug. 20 at Forest Hills Stadium in Queens.
All attendees at the mostly free-of-charge shows must show proof of coronavirus vaccination.