Star-studded b’day bash for Mandela

Will Smith charms the crowd, Amy Winehouse wow them just by showing up but Nelson Mandela proves the biggest star of all at a concert in honor of the South African statesman's 90th birthday.

Will Smith charmed the crowd, Amy Winehouse wowed them just by showing up but Nelson Mandela proved the biggest star of all at a concert in honor of the South African statesman's 90th birthday.

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Acts including Queen, Razorlight, Leona Lewis and a host of African stars joined more than 40,000 music fans for the outdoor show in London's Hyde Park Friday, hosted by Hollywood star Smith and held to mark Mandela's birthday on July 18.

American singer Josh Groban and the Soweto Gospel Choir also performed at the event, which comes 20 years after a 70th birthday concert at London's Wembley Stadium that helped press South Africa's apartheid authorities for Mandela's freedom. The biggest cheers of the night were reserved for Mandela, who told the crowd that the 1988 concert had made a difference. “Your voices carried across the water to inspire us in our prison cells far away,” said Mandela who spent 27 years in South African prisons.