LEGACY ON DISPLAY

THE FIRST TIME Nwaka Onwusa toured the Hall of Fame, she was blown away by treasures like Michael Jackson’s sequined glove and Keith Moon’s “Pictures of Lily” drum kit. But she didn’t see Public Enemy anywhere — even though they were inducted. “I was like, in the words of T.I. and Jay-Z, let’s ‘bring em out,’ ” she says. Onwusa, the daughter of a Nigerian immigrant and conservative Christian from Louisiana, recently became the first black person to curate Cleveland’s Rock Hall, which 600,000 people visit every year. She plans to infuse the exhibits with a touch more of rock’s “ever-changing” nature and broader history. That means, inevitably, making some rock purists angry. But “that way of thinking is unfortunate because rock & roll has always been a melting pot,” Onwusa says. “We wouldn’t even get to rock & roll if it wasn’t for blues, gospel, country, or jazz. If we’re not telling the story of what’s happening right now, we have a problem. We have a serious problem.”