Newark To Host 2023 MTV Video Music Awards

Written By Mike Greenblatt

The 2023 MTV Music Video Awards are returning to downtown Newark at the Prudential Center on September 12 and broadcast to 150 countries. Newark hosted in 2019 and 2022. Brooklyn hosted in 2021. Newark Mayor Ras J. Baraka: “this reverberates our city’s historic vibe as a hotbed of musical genius. Starting with America’s first-known composer in 1759, through the jazz explosion in the 1920s, and up to today’s full spectrum of genres from hip-hop to opera, Newark has long served as America’s turntable for harmonic expression.”

Mayor Baraka was referring to Francis Hopkinson, one of America’s Founding Fathers, who signed the Declaration of Independence as a delegate from New Jersey. The song he wrote in 1759, “My Days Have Been So Wondrous Free,” is known as the first published American secular composition.

Mike Greenblatt

MIKE GREENBLATT has been writing for Goldmine magazine and New Jersey's Aquarian Weekly for more than 35 years. His writing subjects fill the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

He's interviewed Joe Cocker, Graham Nash, David Crosby, Carlos Santana, Bruce Springsteen, Paul McCartney, Johnny Cash, and members of The Rolling Stones and The Beatles. He was 18 when he attended Woodstock in 1969.

In addition to writing about music, Greenblatt has worked on publicity campaigns for The Animals, Pat Benatar, Johnny Winter, Tommy James and Richard Branson, among others. He is currently the editor of The Jersey Sound.

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