British pop superstar Robbie Williams will headline MTV's tenth annual Rock the Vote Awards, which this year will honor Peter Gabriel, Alanis Morissette and Chuck D. D, who will accept the 2003 Rock the Nation award for his community service and advocacy work, will also perform with his pioneering rap trio Public Enemy. The Flaming Lips and Vanessa Carlton will also play at the ceremony, set for New York City's Roseland Ballroom on February 22nd.

Gabriel and Morissette will receive Patrick Lippert Awards for political activism -- Lippert was Rock the Vote's first director, and he died of complications of AIDS in 1993. Gabriel's work with the Witness project, which he co-founded in 1992, has provided cameras and communication technology to activists in fifty countries around the world, to help them document and fight human rights abuses. Morissette has also worked on behalf of many charitable causes, including Groundwork and Music Without Borders.

AUGUSTIN SEDGEWICK
(February 4, 2003)