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The musical moments (so far) during the Olympic Opening Ceremony in Paris
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We're live blogging the opening ceremony throughout the afternoon. Head to our latest updates here.
The rainy opening ceremony featuring athletes floating their way down the Seine through Paris. Still underway, here's who we've seen so far:
Lady Gaga and pink pompoms
The first musical performance of the event is from American star Lady Gaga. She emerged theatrically from behind a heart-shaped plume of pink feathers, wearing a black leotard, long black gloves and a feathery headpiece.
She performed the iconic French song "Mon truc en plumes" by Zizi Jeanmaire as black-clad dancers shook pink pom poms around her. Lady Gaga briefly sat down at a piano to play a few bars, all at the foot of a golden staircase on the banks of the Seine.
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Metal, Marie and Les Mis
Performers at the opening ceremony in Paris leaned into France’s epic and bloody history, mixing themes from the historical novel Les Misérables and heavy metal performed by the band, Gojira.
Dancers played out themes from the Victor Hugo novel-turned-musical, appearing to move through the Parisian sewers — where story protagonist Jean Valjean evaded police on the crime of theft.
A single shot of the word “Liberté” flashed across the screen, before a beheaded Marie Antoinette appeared and launched viewers to a heavy-metal performance back at the River Seine.
Aya Nakamura takes to a golden runway
Singer-songwriter Aya Nakamura, who immigrated from Mali to France as a child, performed a mashup of her songs Pookie and Djadja in a gold outfit on a runway on the Pont des Arts, which links the Institut de France to the Louvre.
Nakamura is France's most popular singer at home and abroad, with the New York Times reporting in March that she had 25 top 10 singles in France.
French rapper Rim'K shouts out Snoop Dogg
Algerian-French rapper Rim'K, wearing a red-and-black checkered jacket by Louis Vuitton, took to the stage to perform a song called "King."
In the song, he notably name-checks rapper and Olympic enthusiast/torchbearer/commentator Snoop Dogg.
Afterwards the NBC hosts checked in with Snoop, who was rocking his Team USA blazer and a pair of shades, dancing with umbrella and microphone in hand.
"Like a drive-in movie, baby," he said with a smile.
A moving performance of 'Imagine' takes place on a fiery raft
As the party scene went dark, all eyes went to two performers on a floating raft. Then, as one of them played the opening notes of John Lennon and Yoko Ono's "Imagine," the piano started to burn — literally.
The performance by pianist Sofiane Pamart and singer Juliette Armanet is meant to celebrate a world reconciled and without borders.
"Imagine" is a permanent element of Olympic protocol, per organizers, having been a highlight of many recent opening ceremonies.
Artists from around the world convened to perform "Imagine" at the 2020 Games in Tokyo.
It's also been performed at the 2012 Olympics in London, and memorably by Stevie Wonder at the closing ceremony of the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta, as a tribute to victims of the Centennial Olympic Park bombing that summer.
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This reporting originally appeared as part of NPR's live coverage of the 2024 Olympic Opening Ceremony in Paris.