Chris Daughtry Solo Portrait - H 2012
Rock star and American Idol alum Chris Daughtry is becoming an ambassador for We Can Be Heroes, DC Entertainment’s recently launched charity campaign to fight hunger in Africa.
Daughtry has recorded an acoustic version of “Rescue Me,” a song from Break the Spell, the third album from his multiplatinum band Daughtry. The song will be released on iTunes in the coming weeks, with 100 percent of the net proceeds going to We Can Be Heroes. The charity is working with humanitarian aid organizations Save the Children, International Rescue Committee and Mercy Corps.
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Daughtry will announce his involvement at Wednesday’s concert at Nokia Theatre in Los Angeles, where he will play the song with a backdrop of We Can Be Heroes art, created by superstar artist and DC Entertainment co-publisher Jim Lee.
Daughtry is a lifelong comic book fan who wanted to be a comic book artist — last year, he and his son walked San Diego’s Comic-Con incognito in Batman and Robin costumes — and developed a relationship with Lee, an artist he idolized. It was Lee who approached Daughtry to get involved.
Daughtry worked on an art project with Lee that will be part of Darkness & Light, a DC-themed art exhibit that will promote We Can Be Heroes, but he felt he could do more.
“We had this song that says it all,” Daughtry tells The Hollywood Reporter. “It was written about feeling like you needed to be rescued from something. It just felt like a great message for what’s going in the Horn of Africa. … We just thought it would be a good idea to do more stripped down, less bombastic version of it.”
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While Daughty hasn’t been to the Horn of Africa, which is comprises Ethiopia, Somalia, Eritrea and Djibouti and sits on the continent’s east side, he has seen other forms of African devastation. The singer is involved with Malaria No More and One.org and visited the central African nation of Uganda.
“It was devastating, what I saw,” he says. “Heartbreaking. You can see that stuff all the time on TV, but until you experience it firsthand, it doesn’t put it into perspective.”
Daughtry will be at Comic-Con in July when Darkness & Light hits the town with a showing at Michael J. Wolf gallery.
Email: Borys.Kit@thr.com
Twitter: @Borys_Kit
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