The Roots Picnic has been an annual tradition in the band’s hometown, Philadelphia, for the past decade, but this year, they expanded that tradition to the West Coast with a concert at the Hollywood Bowl featuring a slew of rap pioneers like Arrested Development, Black Sheep, Common, Queen Latifah, The Pharcyde, and more. The show was a success, so it’s returning in June 2025 with A Roots Picnic Experience: Class of ’95.
This time around, the lineup consists of acts that had their biggest breakouts in the middle of hip-hop’s golden decade, with Bone Thugs-N-Harmony, DJ Quik, E-40, Goodie Mob, Havoc of Mobb Deep, Lil’ Kim, Raekwon, and Redman & Method Man all billed to take the stage, backed — as always — by The Roots and Black Thought. As for why they picked 1995 as the focus year, Questlove explains in the press release:
1995 was our true arrival. Nineteen eighty-seven was the Year of the Creative Adhesive, the year that tied together [Black Thought]’s world and my world in high school, and 1991 was the Year of the Green Light, the year we gave ourselves permission to take our resources and passion and pursue our dream. But 1995? That was the Year It All Came Together, the year when our first major release, Do You Want More?!!!??! was sent into the world. Hip-hop was an entirely new ballgame back then, on an entirely new playing field. Those were the days when there were still things like mainstream terrestrial radio, bloated video budgets, and creativity at both the regional and the global levels. Those were the days that produced classic album after classic album, unleashing countless new ideas about art. Those were the days when the world was our oyster. This is the story of those days
A Roots Picnic Experience: Class of ’95 takes place on 6/8/2025. Tickets go on sale Wednesday, December 11, at 10 am PT at hollywoodbowl.com.
