The Hip Hop Festival returns to Windsor this weekend.
The festival will bring a full day of live music, culture, art, and community to Ernest Atkinson Park.
The free event will welcome a number of artists, DJs, dancers, businesses, community organizations and more from Windsor-Essex and Detroit.
The festival, now in its 6th year, has become an annual celebration aimed at strengthening relationships between communities through music.
The event celebrates the four pillars of hip-hop culture: MCing, DJing, breakdancing, and graffiti art.
Festival organizer DJ Needle 9:14 says it’s a packed day.
“We’re going to have a lot of local artists from Windsor and Detroit performing, some of the legends like Kayyce Closed, King Castro, Mailbooxx is going to be in the house, even some of the newer artists like Mr. Blackmore, The Berzerk, we do have some members from Ghost Group performing.”
He says they’re expecting big crowds.
“We’re expecting between 500 and 1,000, even more, so I’ve been telling everybody definitely come down, bring your phones, record, take pictures with some of your favourite local artists. This is going to be one event you cannot miss, as a matter of fact, you’d better not miss it because it’s going to be wonderful.”
DJ Needle 9:14 says there’s something for everyone.
“If they really don’t like hip hop, because I ran into tons of people that don’t like hip hop and they came to one of my events, one of my shows in the past, and they became a fan. So, there’s something there for everybody. We do have a couple of acoustic artists playing, a couple of singers.”
The festival will run from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m.