Worth the Drive: Dope Entertainment’s Rolling Loud in Miami (featuring Schoolboy Q, Juicy J and more)

When it comes to Florida’s festival scene, there are some pretty great events that take place in the Sunshine State. Whether it’s here in Orlando (Florida Music Festival, Total Fuck Off Weekend, Electric Daisy Carnival), Tampa (Big Guava, Gasparilla) or Miami (Ultra, III Points), the variety of all-day concerts available to us is vast. However, the notion of purely hip-hop festivals often seems to get overlooked. Although there are frequent rappers with tour stops in town, there can sometimes be a dry period, and one question I (and likely other hip-hop fans) ask is where are the hip-hop festivals? Many of these individual concerts are often sold-out, so imagine how hot a festival ticket would be!

Well, Dope Entertainment (the guys who bring a majority of the hip-hop concerts to Orlando) has the answer. Starting at 1 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 28, at Soho Studios, Miami, the first annual Rolling Loud Festival will take place down south. With headliners like Grammy-nominated School Boy Q, hip-hop living legend Juicy J, A$AP Ferg, chef-turned-rapper Action Bronson and Kanye West’s prodigy Travi$ Scott, this is sure to be a huge event (Action Bronson and Travi$ Scott have been some of the best concerts I’ve ever attended).

Not to mention the energetic Florida-bred performers hitting the stages such as Denzel Curry, Robb Bank$, Pouya and Yung Simmie. Even with all these names, unbelievably, there is still so much more talent featured on this line-up. Hip-Hop fans: don’t just view this as the awesome festival it is, but an opportunity to show the power in our numbers, which can enable similar events to occur more often. If you can make it to Miami later this month, this is definitely worth the drive. 

This article appears in Feb 4-10, 2015.