LOS ANGELES — This year's Super Bowl halftime show put L.A. hip-hop history front and center at SoFi Stadium.
Next year, a slew of A-list and on-the-rise rappers will bring the adjacent Hollywood Park grounds its first-ever music event.
Rolling Loud, the country's preeminent hip-hop festival, announced today that it will hold its annual SoCal edition at Inglewood's revamped Hollywood Park on March 3-5, 2023. An on-sale date for tickets and a lineup will be announced this fall.
"Everywhere we go, we're in the heart of hip-hop for that city. Miami Gardens was where 2 Live Crew kicked off. In New York, we're in Queens, and countless rappers are from there," said Tariq Cherif, Rolling Loud's co-founder with Matt Zingler. "Going to Inglewood, it's the same scenario."
Rolling Loud had located to San Bernardino for its last area installment. The 2021 edition featured headliners Kid Cudi, J. Cole and Future, but, said Zingler, "San Bernardino was too far, it didn't work for us."
Rolling Loud's debut at Hollywood Park will mark a milestone for hip-hop in this historically Black area of Southern California.
"Rolling Loud is a global brand, and they're coming to Inglewood with a track record of engaging the community," said Jason Gannon, managing director of SoFi Stadium and Hollywood Park, both developed by Los Angeles Rams owner Stan Kroenke. For the first music festival on the site, "Certainly we were thinking about what would be important for locals. We wanted to program it in a way that would be appealing to the community," Gannon said.
Inglewood Mayor James Butts said in a statement, "We are ready to welcome Rolling Loud and hip-hop fans from all over the world to Inglewood over the course of this three-day event. A festival of this caliber combined with the city's rich music history is a winning combination."
Hollywood Park was the site of a horse-racing track until 2013.
While the national festival market has been battered by inflation, COVID-19, recession fears and a post-pandemic flood of competing events, Rolling Loud drew more than 200,000 fans over three days to its flagship Miami event in July. While tickets for a Rolling Loud weekend can run upward of $400 — no small expense for an area deeply affected by gentrification and rising rents — Cherif and Zingler hope that holding the festival in Inglewood can make the show more accessible for many Angelenos.
"We always think, How can fans afford ticket prices, gas, hotels? How can we offset those costs?" Zingler said. "One thing we can do is to put it in a location where you can sleep in your own bed and take public transit."
July's Rolling Loud Miami gained notoriety for Kanye West's second last-minute cancellation of 2022, after bailing on Coachella with just a few days' notice.
Zingler and Cherif were understandably frustrated by Ye's cancellation.
"We'd never had a headliner pull out until Kanye did, and we don't take that lightly," Cherif said. "The platform we built deserves respect, and we didn't like it. And Kanye fans were so disappointed. But for us as producers, the show must go on."
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