Meek Mill, Da Baby, Musiq Soulchild, Brandy, Hardwork Movement and more will play Roots Picnic 2020

The 13th annual Roots Picnic lineup is here. The annual Questlove-curated throwdown returns to its new home at Philly’s Mann Center for the Performing Arts on Saturday, May 30th, and per the feed of late-night announcements from Quest’s Instagram, appears astonishingly Roots-free this year. But that doesn’t mean key players won’t be in the house, and that there won’t be plenty of Philly love in the mix.

Case in point: the Picnic will be headlined by Meek Mill, who released his last album Championships in 2018 and just dropped a hot new track called “Believe” featuring Justin Timberlake (listen here). There’s also the Philly artists opening the day: Hardwork Movement as well as Aquil Dawud (the child of Aja Graydon and Fatin Dantzler of Kindred the Family Soul). Speaking of soul, Philly’s Musiq Soulchild will lead up a set called “SOUL: a special music gumbo” with Brandy — who was rained out of the Roots Picnic in 2018 — and SWV — who played with Pharrell in 2017. This set, we should note, is billed as “The Roots Present,” so maybe they’ll play the house band for this set, Black Lily style, but as yet that remains unclear.

Other Roots-adjacent sets include a taping of the Questlove Supreme podcast (guests TBA) and another installment of the legendary Black Thought x J Period live mixtape this time featuring Wu-Tang affiliates Raekwon and Ghostface Killah, as well as Griselda.

And on the topic of non-Philly artists in the mix this year, the standouts include rapper and music video genius Da Baby is the big name, expansive expressive bassist Thundercat making a return to the Picnic, a Prince tribute from Meshell Ndegeocello, and California singer SIR.

The onsale information has yet to be announced — as of right now, this information has only lived on Questlove’s official Instagram but we will update you as more information becomes available.

Roots Picnic 2020 Lineup

Around The Way Curls Podcast
Baby Rose
Black Thought x J Period live mixtape ft. Griselda, Raekwon, and Ghostface Killah
Bren Joy
Buddy
Burna Boy
DaBaby
Aquil Dawud
DJ Diamond Cuts
DussePalooza
Hardwork Movement
Meek Mill
Meshell Ndegeocello reimagining Prince & This Thing Called Life
Phony PPL
Poundside Pop
Questlove Supreme Live Podcast
The Read Podcast
SIR
Snoh Aalegra
SOUL: A Special Music Gumbo Presentation ft. Musiq Soulchild, Brandy, and SWV
Thundercat
Summer Walker
Elliott Wilson’s Tidal Exclusive Podcast