The Mahoning Valley’s representation in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame will double this year.

Kool & the Gang, a band started by Youngstown natives Robert “Kool” and Ronald Bell, will join Warren native Dave Grohl in the Cleveland-based hall.

The Bells left the area before their musical careers started — Robert and Ronald were 10 and 8, respectively, when the family moved to New Jersey — but that’s better than Grohl, whose family left Warren’s East Side when the two-time inductee was a toddler.

Hey, their birth certificates are on file here, we can claim ’em.

What makes it extra special is Kool & the Gang will be inducted close to home. This year’s ceremony will be in Cleveland at Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse on Oct. 19.

In a statement released this week by the band’s publicist, Robert Bell said, “On behalf of Kool & the Gang, I’m excited for us to be inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. Our journey goes back 60 years and along the way we’ve traveled down a great road. This includes our tours through the decades with folks that ranged from fellow inductees Elton John to Van Halen. We thank the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame for this great honor.”

It will be interesting to see who gets the honor of inducting Kool & the Gang. The obvious choice is drummer, DJ, filmmaker and hip hop historian Questlove, who curated the 50th anniversary tribute to hip hop at last year’s Grammy Awards.

In talking about Kool & the Gang’s influence on hip hop, Questlove said, “They have been used and utilized so well. They are the complete story. To start off an obscure funk band from Jersey and mature into hitmakers making funky music and then morph into a disco phenomenon, successfully going into the ’80s making classic pop music when a lot of their contemporaries couldn’t do that. Basically, Kool & the Gang is the complete story of the history of soul music.”

Questlove has been active with the Rock Hall, and I suspect his lobbying might have helped get the band on the nominating ballot for the first time.

With Kool & the Gang as one of the most sampled acts of all time, there is no shortage of big names who could be tapped to speak first hand about the band’s impact on soul, funk, R&B and hip hop.

But the Rock Hall also could think beyond that category and strengthen the band’s rock bonafides by choosing a fan such as former Van Halen lead singer David Lee Roth.

When I interviewed Robert Bell last year, he talked about how Roth invited Kool & the Gang to open for Van Halen on its 2012 tour after seeing the band perform at England’s Glastonbury Festival.

Bell said, “David told me, ‘Sixty percent of my fans are ladies. You guys had ‘Celebration,’ we had ‘Jump.’ Back in the day in Hollywood, we used to play your stuff in the clubs. Let’s have a party.’ When we got to ‘Ladies Night,’ ‘Get Down on It’ and ‘Celebration,’ that 60 percent of women got up and whoever was with them, ‘You better get off your butt and get down on it.'”

Then again, with Roth’s reputation for verbosity (and self-promotion), he alone could add another hour to the marathon induction ceremony.

And the 2024 event already looks like it could take all night.

It’s a larger-than-usual induction class with seven other inductees in the performer category — Mary J. Blige, Cher, Dave Matthews Band, Foreigner, Peter Frampton, Ozzy Osbourne and A Tribe Called Quest.

That doesn’t include musical excellence honorees (Jimmy Buffett, MC5, Dionne Warwick and Norman Whitfield) musical influences (Alexis Korner, John Mayall and Big Mama Thornton) and this year’s recipient of the Ahmet Ertegun Award (Suzanne De Passe).

It should be a … “Celebration.” (C’mon – I couldn’t resist)