While Ja Rule and his Fyre Festival continue to dig out from at least 6 separate lawsuits and the onslaught of bad press that comes with stranding paying customers in the Bahamas, another American rapper is looking to enter the festival production game. It seems Snoop Dogg will be taking a short break from cooking with Martha Stewart to bring a 2-day, eclectic music festival to his father's hometown of Magnolia, MS.
Town's population: under 2,400 people
While on his way to the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival this past weekend, Snoop stopped in Magnolia to meet with the town's mayor Anthony Witherspoon and briefly spoke to local media.
After the meeting, the mayor expressed great enthusiasm about the prospect of bringing guests from around the country to his town of fewer than 2,400 people.
At this early stage of planning, there is no indication of where concert goers might stay during such an event, or if Magnolia currently has the infrastructure to support a large-scale, multi-day festival, but Mayor Witherspoon is already on board to make Snoop's dream show happen. "We want to try to get it done this year, but if not, we will definitely do it next year," he told a local newspaper reporter.
During the rapper's 25-year career, he has always wanted to perform in Mississippi but has instead booked concerts in larger urban centers like New Orleans, about 90 minutes away.
He felt it was finally time to take matters into his own hands with Snoop Fest.
"We always stop in New Orleans but we never book a show here," he explained to the local McComb Enterprise-Journal. Adding, "We might as well do it ourselves because my booking agent just won't do it."
Festival would be a multi-generational event
Although the logistics of the festival still need to be ironed out, Snoop has already put great thought into who he would like to see playing and how to appeal to the largest group possible.
Instead of sticking to one genre over the course of both days, or targeting millennials, like the Fyre Festival did, he hopes Snoop Fest will become a celebration of Mississippi as a whole.
The first day would be aimed at the "aunts, grandmas and uncles," and feature more traditional country, blues, and southern gospel artists while "the second day should be about the generation that took it to another level," he said.
On that second day, he imagines Mississippi acts who have found success -- like Brandy, Ray J, and Soulja Boy -- would share the stage with local performers still looking for their big break. Snoop Dogg himself would headline and close the festival.
