The Fifth Annual Brooklyn Hip Hop Festival, which has staged such acts as Big Daddy Kane [click to read], Lupe Fiasco [click to read], and Ghostface Killah [click to read] in past events, recently announced their featured guest artists for this year. All New York-based, rappers Styles P, Pharoahe Monch, and Smif-N-Wessun will take the stage June 20 at the Empire Fulton Ferry State Park.
Wes Jackson, executive director of the festival, expressed his satisfaction on the artists decided upon for this year. “We are more than pleased when we look at our lineup so far. Our goal has always been to unite the Hip-Hop audience under one banner. Monch, Styles and Smif-N-Wessun represent different branches of the Hip-Hop tree. They defy the labels stamped on them,” he said in a press release.
Continuing, Jackson explained the diversity this year’s lineup allows festival-goers. “Monch is a conscious rapper who is at equal ease on the bully pulpit as he is in the club. Styles P is supposed to be a gangster rapper, but has done some of his best work with Talib Kweli. Smif-N-Wessun is a local act that is just as popular in Japan as they are in Crown Heights. This lineup is diversity. This is Hip Hop.”
Another participant in the Brooklyn Hip Hop Festival will be DJ/producer extraordinaire J Period [click to read], who plans to compile a mixtape of the artists from this years lineup, as well as create an exclusive mixtape of live material directly from the festival performances.
