U2 Named MusiCares 2027 Persons of the Year
The 22-time Grammy winners will accept the honor at a Los Angeles ceremony in February 2027.
MusiCares has selected U2 as its 2027 Persons of the Year, recognizing the Irish band’s five-decade career and long record of humanitarian work. Bono, The Edge, Adam Clayton, and Larry Mullen Jr. will accept the honor at next year’s Persons of the Year gala, set for February 5 at Los Angeles’ Peacock Theater—two nights before the Grammy Awards at Crypto.com Arena. Traditionally, artists also gather to perform songs by the night’s honoree, and this year, that concert will be open to the public for the first time ever. Lineup details have yet to be announced.
U2’s extensive history of humanitarian work spans an array of individual causes and joint efforts. Bono co-founded ONE and (RED) and helped push for the creation of PEPFAR, the U.S. AIDS relief program. The Edge started Music Rising after Hurricane Katrina to help musicians replace lost instruments. Clayton, a 2017 MusiCares Stevie Ray Vaughan Award recipient, has backed addiction and mental health recovery efforts, while Mullen Jr. has raised awareness around dyslexia. The band also supported apartheid-era activism in South Africa and funds Music Generation, an Irish youth music education program. Bono was previously named MusiCares Person of the Year in 2003.
Click to load video
“We are huge fans of MusiCares and the lifelines they provide across the incredible pool of talent that is the music industry,” U2 said in a statement accompanying the announcement. “We’ve been recording and touring for 50 years because of that pool, from producers and engineers to carpenters and riggers. ‘Persons of the Year’ couldn’t be a better title as it’s the people we’ve been so fortunate to work with, and of course our indomitable audience, that have given us the opportunity to keep making music and keep rocking the boat on things we really care about. It’s such an honour, and we’re very excited to be in the front row of our first ever U2 gig…we know we’re gonna be outplayed.”
In other U2 news, they’re gearing up to release their first proper studio album in nine years in 2026. They revealed a lead single, “Street of Dreams,” back in July. In just the past six months, the group has dropped two new EPs and covered a classic Pogues track. This year is also the 50th anniversary of the band’s formation in Dublin in 1976.
