Whitney Houston siku mbili kabla ya kifo chake
They are so famous, you don't need a last name to identify them.
Oprah. Beyoncé. Stevie. Aretha. Elton.
All are expected at the private funeral in Newark Saturday for Whitney.
City officials with knowledge of the family's plans told The Star-Ledger that Bill Cosby, David Bowie and Jay-Z also will attend Whitney Houston’s invitation-only funeral at the New Hope Baptist Church on Sussex Avenue, the house of worship where she was nicknamed "Nippy," for a mischievous cartoon character, and where her golden voice first flourished in the junior choir.
The sources asked not to be named because they were not authorized to make the guest list public.
Music legends Stevie Wonder and Aretha Franklin — Houston’s godmother — are scheduled to sing in at the star-studded service that begins at noon. So are Alicia Keys, R. Kelly and gospel singer Donnie McClurkin, said A. Curtis Farrow of the Newark-based Irving Street Rep company, which is helping the Houston family organize the service.
And Thursday night, the celebrity gossip website TMZ reported that the Houston family has reached out to Bobby Brown, Whitney’s ex-husband, and have formally invited him to attend the service.
Interviews with church leaders, friends of the family and others suggest the funeral will be a mixture of a Parade of Stars and religious music revelry.
"It’s going to be a ceremony that reflects her life," New Hope church Pastor Joe A. Carter said yesterday as sound equipment was loaded through church doors.
Scott Gries/Getty ImagesStevie Wonder is one of the singing stars scheduled to perform at Whitney Houston's funeral Saturday in Newark, The Star-Ledger has learned.
Farrow, who has known members of the Houston family for about 16 years, characterized the service as "a celebration of Whitney’s life, with the participation of many people who are very important in Whitney’s life."
Houston’s cousin, Dionne Warwick, is scheduled to speak at the service, as are filmmaker Tyler Perry, Houston’s music-industry mentor Clive Davis and Houston’s sister-in-law and manager, Patricia Houston, Farrow said.
The church’s New Hope Mass Choir, along with the New Jersey Mass Choir, will perform the processional and the opening, Farrow said.
hoir members will back McClurkin and, possibly, some other artists, and Rickey Minor will lead a house band.
The song list and who will be in the backing cast for each artist has not yet been worked out.
Newark Police Director Samuel DeMaio said officers will provide motorcycle escorts to many of the celebrities expected to arrive in Newark.
The funeral will otherwise be a private affair, with police shutting down a six square-block area around the church. There will be no procession of Houston’s body from the Whigham Funeral Home on Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard to the church, a little over a mile away, and no outside video screens so fans can mourn publicly, DeMaio said.
Fans will have to content themselves with a TV and Internet feed from inside the church, where Pastor Marvin L. Winans is scheduled to deliver a eulogy. He told CNN’s Anderson Cooper the family wanted to bury Houston "with dignity."
"We loved her when she was Nippy in New Jersey," said Winans, a family friend who is a Grammy Award winner and pastor of Perfecting Church in Detroit.
"The world loved her because of her voice. But if Nippy could not sing, the Houston family would love her, and I knew that Mama Houston would do it the way she wanted it done. We’re going to church and we’re not going to be worried about if the world can get in."
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