Recap: Rolling Loud celebrates 10 years in Los Angeles
Rolling Loud’s 2024 Los Angeles Festival returned to host dozens of performers and thousands of fans from March 14-17. The self-proclaimed world’s largest hip-hop and rap music festival celebrated its 10-year anniversary in the lot of SoFi Stadium this year. Across four days, music lovers came together to embrace the festival’s culture.
Rolling Loud is known for its unique fashion, ambiance and music. The festival hosts specialty food and drink booths, karaoke, exclusive clothing and merchandise, beauty products and an on-site tattoo shop. With a never-ending list of entertainment, the festival’s allure stretches beyond the music.
Thursday
Originally a three-day long event, Rolling Loud made a last-minute addition to their festival lineup, adding a fourth day to the festival to host Kanye West, or Ye, and Ty Dolla $ign on Thursday.
Ye and Ty Dolla $ign announced the additional day in early February — just a month before the festival — via Instagram. Rolling Loud followed suit and revealed all three-day pass holders would be allowed to attend the fourth day.
The two artists punctually took the stage — the only one open at the time — with the crowd roaring in excitement at the appearance of the strong beam of light that illuminated the stage. Both artists emerged through a thick cloud of smoke covered head to toe in dark black clothing.
But something was missing. Neither artist had a microphone and both of their faces were covered by masks. Instead of singing live, the performers danced to pre-recorded songs off their recent album in collaboration with ¥$, “VULTURES 1,” which played from the speakers.
Some fans felt misled and took to X, formerly known as Twitter. Rolling Loud’s official X account responded to a comment thread on March 13, saying, “You don’t see listening experience on the Yeezy flyer, do you.”
During the show, ¥$ brought Ye’s daughter, North West, to perform on stage during her verse on VULTURES 1’s “TALKING.” Wearing a large fluffy hat with very little of her face visible, as well, North went on stage with four other young girls and danced under the large beam while her verse played over the speaker: “It’s your bestie, Miss Miss Westie.”
According to Billboard, at another Ye performance in Arizona on March 10, the 10-year-old announced her debut album, “Elementary School Dropout.”
At the show’s conclusion, the pair left the stage after about an hour and the speakers continued to play some of Ye’s most popular songs.
This was Ye’s first large-scale performance since 2022 after controversies on his social media regarding anti-semitic remarks. The artist was set to headline Rolling Loud in 2022, but dropped out just five days before the festival and was replaced by Kid Cudi.
(Pink) Friday
Day two of Rolling Loud kicked off with booths and attractions that were closed on Thursday. Friday’s 25 performers included superstars Sexxxy Red, YG and Tyga.
Fans filled the space around the main stage quickly in anticipation of Sexxxy Red’s opening set. During her performance, she played 11 songs, including hits “Rich Baby Daddy” and “Pound Town.” Her set design included a large pink inflatable hat that read ‘Make America Sexxxy Again’.
Following Sexxxy Red was rap duo Rae Sremmard, then popular collaborators YG and Tyga. YG played seven songs followed by Tyga who played eight, and then the duo went on to sing 13 more together.
To close out the set, the duo brought out surprise guest Saweetie to perform her song “My Type.” She performed a flirty version of the track with YG, causing the crowd to roar.
Before exiting the stage, Saweetie addressed the crowd saying, “L.A., I love you. I see all my pretty bitches and my icy girls,” to which the crowd responded in an eruption of cheers.
Scheduled for 9 p.m., Nicki Minaj was forty minutes late to her set, though fans didn’t seem to mind. Once on stage, she immediately began a shortened yet large-scale version of her ongoing Pink Friday 2 World Tour, scheduled from March 2 to July 14.
Through Nicki’s commanding stage presence, limitless pink lights, custom screen graphics and five costume changes, fans were truly transported to the artist’s fictional world, “Gag City”. She played songs from her latest album, “Pink Friday 2,” as well as some older favorites like “Chun Li,” “Roman’s Revenge” and “Starships”.
The crowd went abuzz at the first notes of “Starships”, which Nicki previously said she would no longer perform live. She then began cheekily singing the well-known verses, only saying the first few words and allowing the deafening crowd to sing the rest.
Throughout the show, Nicki spoke to the audience quite often and even tossed merch into the crowd before exiting. Although bright and full of energy, the show was extremely short, with her only spending around forty minutes of her scheduled two-hour set on stage.
Saturday
Saturday’s lineup featured 28 performers, including headliner Post Malone. Fans’ energy remained as high as ever on the third day, with lines stretching long for nearly every attraction at the event.
Earlier in the day, artists Fuerza Regida, Big Sean and $uicideboy$ performed on the main stage.
Big Sean played 13 songs, including throwback hits “Big Bank” and “I Don’t Fuck With You.” Being fan favorites, the crowd often sang the lyrics almost louder than Big Sean himself. The rapper also performed his verse on Ye’s song “Mercy,” featuring rappers 2 Chainz and Pusha T.
Afterward, alternative rap duo $uicideboy$ performed a 17-song set including hit songs “1000 Blunts” and “Kill Yourself (Part III)”. The artists held strong energy throughout the performance by hyping the crowd with huge flames of fire on stage.
Also performing on Saturday was rapper Rob49 who began his set with a live debut performance of his verse on Travis Scott and 21 Savage’s hit song “TOPIA TWINS”.
He shared what it was like to collaborate with the Grammy-nominated artists: “Fun man, my dogs,” he said. “I’m appreciative of the opportunity for real, honestly.”
Rob49 then went on to play a 10-song set, including another live debut of “Wassam Baby,” his track featuring rapper Lil Wayne. He also performed songs “Homebody” and “Mama” from his 2023 album “4 GOD II“.
Flo Milli also performed on Saturday, attracting huge masses of fans from the main stage. The artist played 14 songs, including fan favorite “Never Lose Me,” which has been streamed over 200 million times. Flo Milli also performed her remix of Monaleo’s “We Not Humping” and a cover of 310Babii’s smash hit “Soak City (Do It)”.
Headliner Post Malone, known as “Posty” to his fans, slowly began his set with thick smoke pulling off the stage and over the crowd. The anticipation for his set had the crowd humming patiently under the glow of the deep blue lighting overhead.
The artist came on stage and opened his set with his smash hit “Too Young” off his 2016 album “Stoney”. He fumbled a few of the lyrics, not having performed the song live in a while, but the fans didn’t mind singing the well-known words for him.
Posty then went on to play 16 of his most popular songs from albums across his discography, such as “Rockstar“, “Candy Paint” and “White Iverson”.
Malone brought out surprise guest Quavo to perform “Congratulations” midway through his set. Before leaving the stage, Posty thanked his audience and finished the performance with his song “Chemical”.
Sunday
The fourth and final day of Rolling Loud kicked off at 1 p.m. and featured 31 artists, including headliners Future and Metro Boomin. Earlier in the afternoon, the GoPuff and Culture Kings stages saw smaller acts such as MC Abdul and 310Babii.
“It means the world to me to get my story out,” 15-year-old rapper from Gaza MC Abdul said. “You know, it’s always been a dream of mine to visit and to come perform at Rolling Loud. You know, I came across the world just for this moment.”
310Babii, another young artist, also shared his excitement to perform on the Culture Kings stage after attending the festival as a fan just last year. He spoke on how surreal it was to perform just a year later, saying, “I’m hyped, man.”
To close off his set, 310babii played his hit song “Soak City.” Released in June of 2023, “Soak City” blew up on TikTok with a dance trend. The trend played a huge part in the rapper’s seemingly overnight popularity, garnering him over 6.2 million monthly listeners and 95 million streams on the song. Some fans in the audience attempted the TikTok dance that accompanied the popular song during his performance.
Although he has found immense success in his music-making career so far, the young artist still plans to graduate high school. The 18-year-old rapper began making music in between classes before finding success online. When speaking about it, he was unsure how he has managed to balance both aspects of his life.
“I’m a senior in high school,” he said. “I graduate in June. So once I have seven days a week and no more school, we go harder.”
Scheduled for 8:30 p.m., Future and Metro Boomin arrived at their set roughly 30 minutes late. During the headlining performance, the rap duo played 33 songs from their collaboration album, “Heroes and Villains.” They also included fan favorites like Future’s “Stick Talk,” “F*ck Up Some Commas” and “Puffin on Zootiez”.
Throughout the set, four special guests were brought to the stage: Travis Scott, Quavo, Kodak Black and Don Toliver. Don Toliver was brought out to perform his verse on the “Heroes and Villains” interlude “I Can’t Save You.” Quavo was then brought out to perform “Turn Yo Clic Up” and “Hotel Lobby” with Future. Finally, Travis Scott came onto the stage to join the rest of the group during a performance of his hit song “FEIN.”
Gunna and Future then debuted two new collaborations with Travis Scott titled “Family Forever” and “Type Shit.” They announced that the new songs will be featured on Metro Boomin’s newest collaboration album, titled “WE DON’T TRUST YOU.”
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