ROLLING LOUD
Rolling Loud is a hip-hop music event that takes place in the United States, Europe, Australia, and Canada. Complex calls it "one of the biggest rap-only events in the world," while Billboard calls it "the be-all of hip-hop festivals." An estimated 210,000 people attended the event in Miami in 2019.
History:
Matt Zingler and Tariq Cherif, who met in elementary school in Hollywood, Florida, founded the festival in 2015. When they were in high school, they began organizing and promoting parties that "leaned heavily on a mix of Southern and Midwestern rap." In 2010, they transitioned to professional live music events, commencing with an after-party led by Rick Ross.
By the summer of 2013, they were presenting monthly events in Miami with emerging musicians such as Travis Scott and Kendrick Lamar. Before seeing the need for a genre-specific music event, the couple marketed musicians from Florida's emerging SoundCloud rap scene under the brand name Dope Entertainment.
The opening ceremony Rolling Loud took place in February 2015 in Miami, Florida, and included musicians like as Schoolboy Q, Juicy J, Currensy, and Action Bronson. It was held in Soho Studios in the city's Wynwood area, albeit the site was momentarily flooded due to rain.
Rolling Loud 2016 was held at the larger Mana Wynwood convention center and featured headlining acts Ty Dolla $ign, Young Thug, and Future.
Rolling Loud relocated to Bayfront Park in Downtown Miami in 2017. It has been held at Hard Rock Stadium in Miami Gardens since 2018. The festival has extended to new locations in 2017, with the debut editions of Rolling Loud Bay Area[8] and Rolling Loud Los Angeles.
Rolling Loud Australia in Sydney, Australia, and Rolling Loud NYC were added to the roster of host cities in 2019.
The 2020 festival was initially slated for May 8-10 but was postponed for July 23-25, 2021, in response to the current COVID-19 outbreak in the United States.
Rolling Loud sponsored a post-pandemic celebration in Miami in 2021, with over 200,000 guests. The event collaborated with WWE and includes a Friday Night Smackdown.
Rolling Loud continues to grow into new nations in 2022. Rolling Loud's inaugural European event, occurring from July 1-3, 2022, was announced in 2021 as cooperation with Woo-Hah!.
Since 2014, Rolling Loud has teamed with Festival, a prominent fellow hip hop music event hosted annually in Hilvarenbeek, the Netherlands. Rolling Loud Portugal took held on July 6-8, 2022, after being postponed in 2020 owing to the COVID-19 epidemic. Rolling Loud Toronto is set to take place in Canada on September 9-11, 2022.
Festivals:
Miami: (2015–2017), Miami Gardens (2018–2019); (2021–present)
Bay Area: Mountain View (2017), Oakland (2018–19)
Southern California: San Bernardino (2017, 2021), Los Angeles (2018–19)
Sydney, Australia: (2019)
Hong Kong: Kowloon (2019, canceled)
New York City: (2019, 2021–present)
Hilvarenbeek, The Netherlands: (2022)
Portimão, Portugal: (2022)
Toronto, Canada: (2022)
Festival incidents include:
According to NPR, Rolling Loud "is a hot spot for arrests," and in The New York Times, "Rolling Loud events have previously been linked to arrests and violence." The 2019 Miami Music Festival has been described as "plagued with pandemonium."
Rapper Lil B was allegedly assaulted by rapper A Boogie with da Hoodie and his crew in 2017 at Rolling Loud in Mountain View, California. B's concert was canceled, supposedly because the assailants took his equipment.
In 2019, during Rolling Loud in Los Angeles, a 23-year-old guy named Kalvin Sanchez was beaten and brought to the hospital with significant head injuries. He died four days later, and his death was ruled a murder.
Travis Scott was sued in 2022 for allegedly instigating a stampede during his performance at Rolling Loud in Miami three years previously, in 2019. The complaint alleged that Scott was irresponsible in pushing the crowd to grow more aggressive as people were "being harmed, choking, losing consciousness, fighting, and being crushed."