French Montana confirmed to line-up for inaugural DRIP World festival

French Montana is the first big international performer announced for DRIP World, a new multi-date hip-hop festival which plans to visit both coasts later this year.

The Morocco-born, Bronx-raised “Unforgettable” rapper, will join American pros Lil’ Skies and Comethazine alongside homegrown artists AMARNI, Ay Huncho and Sophiya on its inaugural bill, which will kick off August 31 at Sydney’s Parramatta Park, visit the Brisbane Showgrounds (on September 1) and Melbourne (September 7 at a venue yet to be confirmed) and wrap up September 8 at Perth’s Gloucester Park.tbc

According to Yellow Live, producer of the DRIP World festival, another batch of nine artists will be announced in due course.

“Hip-hop and urban music are the most popular and fastest growing genres of music,” says Yellow Live promoter and CEO Lui Spedaliere, “and Australia deserves to experience the world’s biggest stars and the hottest new talent locally and internationally.”

Spedaliere isn’t wrong.

Hip-hop is the No. 1 genre in the U.S. (though many observers argue urban music is over-indexed on streaming platforms), while the urban and R&B accounted for roughly one in every four tracks consumed in the world’s biggest market. Rappers dominate the U.S. charts and Drake is as big as they come, with his album Scorpion finishing 2018 as was Nielsen Music’s top album of the year and the Canadian rapper recently named by the IFPI as the Global Recording Artist of the Year.

DRIP World 2019 poster

DRIP World is the latest signal Australia might be ready for a new wave of traveling fests, with the heavier-edged Download and Good Things brands embarking on multi-city runs in recent months.

Hip-hop festivals, in particular, have endured a bumpy ride in these parts. The year 2013 was a particularly bad one.

In one wretched stretch, the inaugural Movement fest — five scheduled dates featuring Nas, 2 Chainz, Chiddy Bang, Joey Bada$$, Angel Haze, Spit Syndicate, Thundamentals and Bliss N Eso — was cancelled, and the fourth edition of Supafest — which would have featured T.I., Ne-Yo and 50 Cent, Akon, J. Cole, Waka Flocka Flame, Young Jeezy and others over four dates — was canned.

Also during that horror run, the Sprung hip-hop festival downsized, the third edition of the boutique mini-fest Rap City was shelved and a planned tour by Pitbull and Kesha was yanked a little more than two weeks before the first show.

Six years on, with hip-hop now a mainstream phenomenon, DRIP World is planning to take its 15 artists and single stage format on the road for the very first time.

Pre-sales for the Sydney, Brisbane and Perth dates kick off next Thursday, June 13, with the general pre-sale starting the following Monday, June 17. More than 90,000 tickets will be available across the four shows, organisers say, with general admission priced from $169.00 plus booking fee and VIP access starts from $330.00 plus booking fee.

All shows are 18-plus.

More informational is available here.

This article originally appeared on The Industry Observer, which is now part of The Music Network.