The Roots Picnic is headed home...to London
The London Picnic will feature the Roots, Nas, Common, Floetry, Bilal, Music Soulchild, Robert Glasper and more. It's a homecoming of sorts for the Philly band.
The Roots Picnic is going to London.
Wait, what? I thought the Philadelphia hip-hop crew’s annual music festival was only moving a mile down the road from the Mann Center to Belmont Plateau?
It is. That much is true. This year’s Philly Picnic will be staged on the Plateau on May 30 and 31 with Jaÿ-Z and Erykah Badu headlining.
But for the first time, a miniversion of the fest is crossing the Atlantic to the UK.
Roots Picnic London is happening on Aug. 8 and 9 at the Crystal Palace Bowl in the England’s capital city, with a mix of American and British acts, with several of the U.S. musicians happening to be Philadelphians.
The Roots and Nas, the New York rapper behind the acclaimed 1994 album Illmatic, will play together in a two-hour headlining set on the first night.
That day will also feature the J. Period Mixtape, a popular feature at all Picnics, during which Roots rapper Tariq “Black Thought” Trotter will be joined by Yasiin Bey (formerly known as Mos Def) and Benny the Butcher.
British soul singers and songwriters Sarah Keable and Nia Smith are also on the bill.
The second night’s headliners are Anthony Hamilton and Philly neo-soul singer Music Soulchild, plus Floetry, the British duo of former Philadelphians who played the Met Philly last weekend.
Keyboard player and bandleader Robert Glasper will also join with Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson in leading a Sunday Jam, featuring Philly’s Bilal and Common.
The Crystal Palace Bowl is an outdoor venue where Bob Marley played his final London show. It is not the home of Crystal Palace, the English Premier League football club partially owned by Sixers owners Josh Harris and David Blitzer. that Team plays nearby in London at Selhurst Park.
Roots Picnic London represents a homecoming of sort for the Philly band. In the 1990s, around the time of the release of its debut album Organix, Black Thought, Questlove and their band mates lived as struggling bohemians in the Kentish Town section of London.
On June 27 in Los Angeles, the Roots is also presenting “A Roots Picnic Experience” at the Hollywood Bowl. So the expansion of the Picnic brand continues, with iterations happening 2700 miles to the west and 3500 miles east of Philadelphia.
Roots Picnic London tickets are available at PalaceBowlPresents.Co.Uk.
