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HYDE PARK — Iconic rap duo Clipse will reunite for a rare live set and several Chicago legends will honor the 50th anniversary of hip-hop music at this year’s Hyde Park Summer Fest.
The festival is June 17-18 on the Midway Plaisance near 59th Street and Ellis Avenue. Clipse and 2 Chainz are this year’s headliners, while Robert Glasper, Terry Hunter, Uncle Waffles, Tobe Nwigwe and Jonathan McReynolds are among the musicians set to perform, the organizers announced Tuesday night.
This year’s edition will also feature a Chicago Hip-Hop 50 set featuring Twista, Vic Mensa, Crucial Conflict, Shawnna and Do or Die. The performance celebrates 50 years of hip-hop, which Bronx DJ Kool Herc is widely credited with originating at a party in August 1973.
Two-day general admission tickets start at $129, while two-day VIP passes start at $299. One-day tickets start at $79. To buy tickets, click here.
Pusha T and No Malice, the two brothers who make up Clipse, will perform hits like “Grindin'” and “When the Last Time,” festival organizers said.
Clipse has rarely reunited since the duo’s last album, 2009’s “Til the Casket Drops.” Their set at June’s Something In The Water festival was their first live performance in 12 years.
“This is a huge win for Chicago and the music industry overall, especially since our city’s hip-hop influence is often overlooked and underestimated,” festival co-producer Dave Jeff said in a statement. “With the return of Clipse for an exclusive performance, we’ll be able to celebrate a legendary duo alongside the fifty-year anniversary of hip-hop, a genre that Chicago has undoubtedly continued to play a leading role in growing and evolving.”
More performers will be announced in the coming weeks, according to the festival’s Instagram page.
Local DJs like Terry Hunter — the house music legend who recently earned a Grammy nomination for his remix of Beyoncé’s “Break My Soul” — are key to the festival’s success, said festival founder Jonathan Swain, who owns the Kimbark Beverage Shoppe at 1214 E. 53rd St.
“Chicago DJ culture is really at the foundation of this event and always has been,” Swain told Block Club last year.
This year is the eighth edition of the festival, which was formerly known as the Hyde Park Brew Fest. The festival moved to the Midway Plaisance last year, giving attendees more room to spread out than the event’s prior location at 53rd Street and Harper Court, organizers said.
Past festivals have drawn up to 25,000 attendees. The organizers have grown the event from a street festival into a “major music festival” in the vein of Lollapalooza or Lyrical Lemonade Summer Smash, Jeff said last year.
The 2022 Hyde Park Summer Fest was the first ticketed event. Ten percent from each ticket was donated to nearby high schools and supported by a matching donation from the charitable arm of South Shore-based Bowa Construction, raising $75,000 for the schools, organizers said.
For more information, visit the festival’s website.
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