Rolling Loud is coming to Toronto this summer, and it’s bringing along some of the biggest names in hip hop.
Headlined by Future, Wizkid and Dave, the festival — set to take place Sept. 9 to Sept. 11 at Ontario Place — also boasts appearances from major commercial artists like Migos, Roddy Rich, Rae Sremmurd, Lil Uzi Vert and many more.
It’s an impressive lineup, but after staring at the poster for a few minutes, I couldn’t help but ask, where are the women?
Of the 101 acts listed on the poster, only 17 are women, and only a handful of them appear on the top three lines of the poster on each day.
To be fair, the festival does include impressive female acts, including BIA, Jamaican dance hall singer Shenseea and Brampton’s own Haviah Mighty. But for the most part, it’s a total dude-fest.
And let’s be absolutely clear—there is not shortage of women in hip-hop. Over the past half decade, chart-topping superstars like Cardi B, Doja Cat and Lizzo have dominated the genre.
Or there’s Megan Thee Stallion. Arguably the biggest name in hip hop right now, the Houston rapper lives at the top of the Billboard charts, and is coming off one of the most talked about performances at Coachella.
“It’s bullsh–,” said Angeline Tetteh-Wayoewho hosts The Block on CBC Radio.
“Do better. There is no lack of female talent. You just have to try a bit harder and ask a little bit more and reach out to your people. Because women are trying. We try and push and struggle everyday. The least these organizers can do, in this day and age, is meet us … even a quarter of the way,” she said.
“The organizers don’t mind taking our money to pay male artists, when most women would like to see women and have our money support their careers as well.”
Now, I’ve never organized a large-scale music festival before, but let’s imagine some alternate scenario. What if, instead of Roddy Rich — whose recent single flopped so hard he deactivated his Twitter account — the festival brought in Saweetie, the charismatic rapper whose 2021 hit “Best Friend” earned her a Grammy nomination for Best New Artist?
Instead of Migos, the Atlanta trap trio that hasn’t released a good album since 2017, why not nab City Girls, the dynamic trap duo from Florida?
The lineup includes plenty of heavy hitters from the UK, including Dave, Skepta and Central Cee. Why not Little Simz, whose 2021 album “Sometimes I Might Be Introvert” was considered one of the best of the year?
Apparently, Rolling Loud paid Afro-pop star Wizkid $1 million to headline on Sunday. Why not open the purse for Tems, the Nigerian singer whose lush voice turned the Wizkid single “Essence” into a global hit?
If you want to energize the crowd, why not drop Sheck Wes for Rico Nasty, the thrilling MC from Maryland? If you want something weird, how about Tierra Whack?
The festival did a good job at attracting talent from Canada — Nav, Roy Wood$, Jazz Cartier, Belly and Tara Lord. But why is Chromazz — who is better known as a 6ixBuzz Instagram model than a musical artist — there instead of the critically-acclaimed non-binary rapper DijahSB, or the Polaris Prize-winning Backxwash?
Tetteh-Wayoe agrees that the lineup overlooks a tonne of Canadian talent, too:
Charmaine, TRP. P, Phoenix Pagliacci, Ebhoni, Exmiranda, Leila Dey, Magi Merli, Tanika Charles, Sydanie, Zochi, Domanique Grant, Cartel Madras, Sate, Naya Ali, Sure-D, Queeendemme, Keah, BLK. Those are just off the top of my head.”
“Fact of the matter, it’s not just about the performers,” Tetteh-Wayoe emphasized. “It’s the environment you create that makes women feel safe and included.”
Indeed, the safety and inclusivity of mega-festivals has come under scrutiny in recent years. Just last November, ten festivalgoers died following a fatal crowd crush at the Astroworld Music Festival in Houston.
On top of that, many women are confronted with additional layers of concern at live music events. As of 2021 survey from the UK found that more than 40 per cent of women experienced sexual harassment at a live music event. In Canada, as of 2013 study by the Ottawa Hospital’s Sexual Assault and Partner Abuse Care Program found that 26 per cent of sexual assault cases involving patients occurred at mass gatherings.
It begs the question: can organizers guarantee an inclusive environment for women if the vast majority of its talent is men?
Rolling Loud is considered the world’s largest hip hop festival, and it’s amazing that Toronto was chosen as a host city. But in an industry that requires women to work twice as hard as men to make it to the top, organizers need to step it up.