Jay-Z's Made In America Expands To Los Angeles

This Labor Day, Philadelphia isn’t the only place to make it in America. The always-eclectic Jay Z-curated Made In America Festival, which has taken place in Philly every year since 2012, has announced an expansion into Los Angeles this year. Both events will be held simultaneously in a uniquely bi-coastal 2-day event taking place over Labor Day weekend August 30 and 31.

Other than promising “twice the amount of music,” lineup details so far are scare, although early rumors and fan wish lists on social media are seeing 100% unconfirmed names like Kanye West, Coldplay, Calvin Harris, Empire of the Sun, and Outkast being bandied about.

The Philadelphia festival will be held at its usual location at Ben Franklin Parkway, which last year played host to a cross-genre cultural collaboration of acts including Beyonce, Nine Inch Nails, Deadmau5, Phoenix, and Queens of the Stone Age.

With last year seeing a 50% increase in attendance with 120,000 people over two days, the expansion is a natural result of the festival’s success. The L.A. festival will be held near City Hall at the civic center’s Grand Park, a downtown outdoor space that has never hosted an event of this magnitude.

The event burst onto the overcrowded festival scene in 2012, making a lot of noise with a first-year lineup like no other as the festival makes a point to distinguish itself from other music festivals by hosting a wildly diverse range of acts from hip-hop and R&B to indie rock and EDM.

The 2012 festival saw Jay Z perform alongside the likes of dance music heavies Skrillex and Calvin Harris, hip-hop stars Run-DMC and Odd Future, and rockers from The Hives to Pearl Jam. That year’s festival, which grossed around $5 million in ticket sales, is noted as being the place where Pearl Jam famously joined Jay Z on stage for a rousing performance of “99 Problems.”

The Budweiser-sponsored Made In America Festival, which was also the subject of a 2013 Ron Howard documentary, also includes carnival rides and food trucks. "L.A. has 99 problems, but Jay Z and Budweiser Made in America ain't one," L.A. county supervisor Gloria Molina was quoted as saying in the Los Angeles Times.

The announcement (which Jay Z announced with L.A. Mayor Eric Garcetti outside City Hall) comes hot on the heels of another high-profile recent announcement by Jay Z, who has just announced that he and wife Beyonce will be embarking on their first ever co-headlining tour this summer, a 20-date worldwide jaunt that is scheduled to begin in late June and end in early August.

Made In America tickets are currently on sale on the festival website, priced at $99.50 for the Philadelphia event and $125 for the Los Angeles version.

(UPDATE) Lineups have been released for both LA and Philadelphia:

Philadelphia Made in America Lineup

Kanye West, Kings of Leon, The National, Pharrell Williams, Spoon, Grimes, Chromeo, Girl Talk, De La Soul, Tiësto, Danny Brown, J. Cole, Holy Ghost!, Mayer Hawthorne, City and Colour, The Neighbourhood, AWOLNATION, Baauer, YG, Bleachers, Steve Aoki, and Destructo.

Los Angeles Made in America Lineup

Kendrick Lamar, Chance the Rapper, ScHoolboy Q, Weezer, Rise Against, John Mayer, Imagine Dragons, Sublime with Rome, Cypress Hill, Metric, Juanes, Afrojack, Wolfgang Gartner, Dr. Dog, Ab-Soul, Jay Rock, Isaiah Rashad, SZA, Hit-Boy, Classixx, Nipsey Hussle, Rita Ora, ZZ Ward, DJ Mustard, Capital Cities, Borgore, YG, 12th Planet, Mute Math, and A Tribe Called Red

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