Music – 35 seconds ago

LL Cool J performs onstage during the 2023 iHeartRadio Music Awards at Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles, California on March 27, 2023. Broadcasted live on FOX. (Photo by Kevin Winter/Getty Images for iHeartRadio)

Don’t call it a comeback – Rock The Bells is still here. The inaugural hip-hop music festival will include a full lineup this summer of throwback phenoms including Queen Latifah, De La Soul, Ludacris, Method Man & Redman, Rakim, Salt-N-Pepa, Roxanne Shanté, Monie Love, Fabolous, Slick Rick, and more.

Sponsored by Procter & Gamble and Walmart, RTB returns to Queens, New York Saturday, August 5, 2023 at Forest Hills Stadium. The one-day event will mark the festival’s third year of existence, also commemorating the 50th anniversary of hip-hop. Curated by LL Cool J, the festival, titled after his 1985 song of the same name, previously discussed the impact of the hip-hop event.

“I feel like Hip-Hop is indispensable, and I feel like the same reverence and deference in the way Paul McCartney gets celebrated, the way Bob Dylan gets celebrated or Mick Jagger, I feel like these artists, these kings and queens, deserve that same treatment for this art form,” he said.

The 2022 edition of RTB was sold-out and also hosted a ‘hip-hop food court experience,’ with Bun B’s Trill Burgers, Nas’ Sweet Chick, Mia X‘s Whip Them Pots, E-40‘s Goon With the Spoon, Jadakiss & Styles P’s Juices for Life and Ghostface Killah‘s Killah Koffee.

Also this year, LL will headline the upcoming RTB-sponsored The F.O.R.C.E. (Frequencies of Real Creative Energy) Live, with The Roots, DJ Jazzy Jeff, and DJ Z-Trip. Scheduled to join the fun during selected dates are Queen Latifah, Rakim, Salt-N-Pepa, Common, MC Lyte, Method Man & Redman, Big Boi, Bone Thugs-N-Harmony, Ice T, Juvenile, Doug E. Fresh, Slick Rick, De La Soul, Goodie Mob, Jadakiss, Rick Ross.

RTB plans to end 2023 with a bang, launching their inaugural hip-hop cruise, which sets sail from Miami to the Bahamas in November.