Hip-hop festival Rolling Loud and Twitch have announced a new music partnership that will see the two entities team-up for a digital festival series and weekly programming. It is the first partnership of its kind for the online platform.
The new agreement includes three upcoming digital Rolling Loud festivals, complete with state-of-the-art production values and star-studded lineups; each digital festival will present over five hours of live performances each day of the event. The first festival, titled Loud Stream, is scheduled for the weekend of Sept. 12-13 exclusively on Twitch.
“Streaming on Twitch transports viewers into a live concert atmosphere and creates an experience for artists to interact with fans in ways only possible on Twitch,” said Twitch’s head of music content Will Farrell-Green in a release. “As in-person concerts are put on hold, we’re working to create an incredible backstage environment that fans can access from anywhere in the world. Rolling Loud has a powerful community of hip-hop fans, and we’re thrilled to partner with them for a first of its kind event that will bring their incredible live music brand to life.”
Along with the upcoming festivals, Rolling Loud will broadcast hip hop-driven weekly content on the official Rolling Loud Twitch channel, featuring content that intersects hip hop with other cultural pillars like fashion, food, art, and gaming. Monthly showcases will also be created around fashion and cooking.
“At Rolling Loud, our core business lies in exchanging energy with fans. The artist puts out the energy, the fans give it right back to the artist – it’s a complete power exchange. That’s what a concert, and more specifically Rolling Loud, is. We trap energy and the trap is boomin,'” said Rolling Loud co-founder/co-CEO Tariq Cherif in a release. “When we planned to bring Rolling Loud to the virtual experience, we needed to find a partner that could help create that energy exchange and understand the core DNA of Rolling Loud. It only made sense to partner with Twitch – a service that thrives off of live engagement with fans and champions a diverse collection of creators. The Twitch team has been incredibly supportive in meeting our creative goals and we’re thrilled to be partnering with them.”
Regularly streamed content on Twitch’s Rolling Loud channel will feature The Leak hosted by Cherif, which will offer an opportunity for hip-hop fans to hear new music the night before its official release. Got Bars? is a six-month long freestyle competition series offering weekly battles between rising lyricists that will allow channel subscribers to pick the freestyle topic. All viewers will also have the chance to vote on the winners along with three judges from the Rolling Loud team.
Additional programming includes: Loud Gaming, which will pit artists, athletes, influencers and Rolling Loud staff against gamers for exclusive prizes; livestream podcast The Founders hosted by Rolling Loud co-founders Matt Zingler and Cherif, who will discuss a variety of lifestyle and current events topics that intersect with hip-hop; and Live From The Studio, which will provide an exclusive look into the Rolling Loud recording studio where producers, artists, and songwriters create music and collaborate while staying engaged with the Twitch community.
“We’ve always had our eyes on content creation; it felt like the natural next step for the brand, but it wasn’t until the pandemic hit that we had the bandwidth to execute these ideas to the fullest. Twitch gave us the creative control to produce unique shows that hold true to our ‘ahead-of-the-curve’ mentality and play to Twitch’s strengths as the leading live stream platform out there,” said Rolling Loud co-founder/co-CEO Matt Zingler in a statement. “Expect Rolling Loud to do in the live stream world just as we have done in the festival space…”
After postponing in 2020 due to the pandemic, Rolling Loud Miami is scheduled to take place in February 2021. Rolling Loud Portugal, the brand’s first European festival, recently announced the lineup for next summer.
Digital festival and programming lineups are expected soon.