What Happened to Hip-Hop at Hopscotch?

Few people know the magical, chance encounters made possible by the genre-blending DNA of Raleigh’s Hopscotch Music Festival better than Charlotte rapper leroy.

In 2014, he performed — then under the name WELL$ — in a small, upstairs venue (he doesn’t remember the name) where two audience members of note took an interest in his mix of snarling stage presence and withering writing. They were Nick Sanborn and Amelia Meath, whose self-titled debut as electropop duo Sylvan Esso had been released earlier that year to nationwide critical acclaim. The three began collaborating, eventually leading to the 2017 WELL$ song “Young Man,” co-produced by Sanborn and featuring vocals from Meath. It remains his most popular song to date, with more than 4 million streams on Spotify alone.

“I don’t get the Sylvan Esso song without doing Hopscotch,” he emphasizes.

That Hopscotch would catalyze such a partnership is hardly a surprise. For much of its 14-year lifespan, the playground-like, “hop-skip-jump” ethos for which the event is named has spoken not only to Hopscotch's close-proximity venues that ranged from outdoor mega-stages to cramped, sweaty dives, but also to a laudable diversity of genres. Year after year, irrespective of personal taste, one could reliably skim the poster and find sets to get excited about — from folk-Americana to hardcore to industrial techno, and more. But it was a healthy dose of hip-hop that made the festival a late-summer staple of the regional rap community’s calendar.  

“It felt like a weekend with your cousins,” says leroy, who’s been to the festival multiple times since the night he met Sylvan Esso. “It felt like a homecoming.” 

A scan of lineups over the years illustrates what he means, starting with the inaugural 2010 edition, when the lineup boasted Raekwon, 9th Wonder, Big Remo, Skyzoo, Kooley High, K-Hill, KAZE, The Away Team — and Public Enemy as headliner. In 2014, Durham rap duo Toon & The Real Laww opened for De La Soul on the City Plaza main stage, while an impressive slate of indie rappers from North Carolina and beyond filled out the club shows: Deniro Farrar, Joe Scudda, Open Mike Eagle, Madison Jay. And in 2019, a newly reunited Little Brother joined Lute, and Kooley High on the City Plaza stage, buttressed by an embarrassment of riches on the undercard: Earthgang, Joey Purp, Injury Reserve, Matt Martians, and Triangle natives Jooselord and pat junior. 

In other words, for most of its existence, Hopscotch, despite being more of an indie/alternative festival than anything else, earned a reputation for treating hip-hop with genuine curatorial care and judgment. The genre felt like a core artistic pillar of the festival’s brand, rather than some exotic adornment sprinkled on top. That curatorial sensibility has been a cultural boon to the area, no doubt — and as such, warrants a certain degree of goodwill and benefit of the doubt. 

In recent years, however, questions have emerged in the community over whether that commitment is still as strong as it once was. So, when the 2025 lineup arrived earlier this month with Earl Sweatshirt as the lone hip-hop headliner, followed up by just a few smaller rap acts below, the volume of those questions grew louder than ever before.  

“Y’all allergic to hip-hop?” asked the Raleigh-based DJ and producer Aaron Kahlil in the comments of the announcement post. “One hip-hop artist, though?” replied Durham rapper .zone (the actual number is four). Another artist, Raleigh rapper and InThaFest founder Noahh, could muster only the backhanded encouragement: “Maybe y’all will get it right one day.”

The most thoroughly articulated rebuke, however, came from that 2014 Hopscotch alumnus himself, leroy, who posted a lengthy statement to his account. It read, in part:  

“It’s been hard not to notice how each year seems to feature fewer and fewer artists (and audiences) that look like me… Hip-hop isn’t just a genre; it’s a global cultural force, a local voice, and historically, a key part of your festival’s identity. The recent underrepresentation doesn’t just feel like an oversight; it feels like a step backwards.” (He has not gotten any outreach from the festival in response to his message.) 

In the days that followed, similar sentiments flowed freely in texts, calls, and private group chats. Some voiced frustrations about the lineup and growing exasperation at the festival specifically, while others called out the steadily gentrifying culture of Raleigh (one local artist likened it to the phenomenon of urban basketball courts being converted for tennis and pickleball). Arguably more important than the specific critiques being made were the people making them: these were not disgruntled hangers-on or fly-by-night clout chasers; rather, they were the exact kind of long-tenured artists and creative organizers with whom the festival should aspire to have its strongest relationships. 

For those intent upon viewing the hip-hop shortcomings of Hopscotch ‘25 as part of a larger pattern at the festival rather than an easily forgiven one-off, supporting evidence is not hard to find.