Southern Hip-Hop will be celebrated at the Hip-Hop South Festival this weekend (April 22 and 23). The festival will include two nights of live music at several venues, including Cat’s Cradle. In addition to popular artists such as Big Boi of OutKast, Rapsody and Sa-Roc; local artists will perform at the celebration. There will also be a virtual lecture on sneaker culture, an exhibition on Hip-Hop scholarship and a public mural.

Among the co-curators of the festival are two Harvard Nasir Jones (Hip Hop Fellows), UNC adjunct professor Christopher Massenburg, and Regina Bradley, a professor at Kennesaw State University. The festival is sponsored by Carolina Performing Arts as part of Southern Futures: a University-wide interdisciplinary project aimed at redefining the South from within, focusing on the arts and humanities.

"While the Hip-Hop genre is often dominated by artists from the Northeast and West Coast, the curators want to exhibit Southern Hip-Hop and the culture that surrounds it. It's not just the drum and the hi-hat," Massenburg said. "Since Hip-Hop traditionally samples from other music genres, The South has different sources of inspiration than the rest of the country. Its Gospel, Blues, Jazz and the bass of Hip-Hop."

Tickets include single-day and two-day pass options; a limited number of UNC-Chapel Hill student tickets are available. All ticket buyers for the Friday and/or Saturday main show events will receive souvenir posters by artist and designer Marcus Kiser.