Climb Every Mountain?
Justin Timberlake is gonna climb Mount Kilimanjaro … and it’s all for charity.
He and rapper Lupe Fiasco – were asked by Ethiopian-born pop star Kenna to help out with the mission, which is aiming to raise awareness of the world water crisis.
Now, the climb has been done before by other rockers,(and, again, for charity) like Take That’s Gary Barlow and Boyzone’s Ronan Keating. Their climb last year raised over £3,326,142 for Comic Relief.
There’s a special significance to this climb for Kenna, whose hits include Out Of Control.
“My dad almost died as a child from waterborne diseases in Ethiopia, and he had talked to me about digging a well there, and I thought, ‘I have too many friends who would be concerned with the subject of clean water,” he said. “‘Maybe I can help out.’”
It’s actually something that Fiasco’s looking forward to.
“I’m an adventure junkie. Part of the motivation is beating Kenna to the top. Sabotaging his tent, taking the lining out of his coat, lacing it with ants or something like that. (The water crisis in Africa) is a universal problem; it’s all mounting to the point where eventually there’s no clean water left. If I did a song, it would be jam-packed with so much information, it would almost be like we fit the substance of an entire interview in three and a half minutes.”
All three are expected to take the climb later this year. My only suggestion? For the rapper Lupe Fiasco to leave his last name at home for this one (you … do know what the word “fiasco” means, right?).
Hope they make it, though … and that it’ll awaken a lot of people to the burgeoning water problem, whether throughout Africa or elsewhere.
July 15th, 2009 at 2:26 pm
So jealous - I totally wanna do that climb!