J. Cole‘s Dreamville Music Festival announced that it will return to North Carolina in 2025. The event is scheduled to celebrate its fifth anniversary during the weekend of April 5 and 6 at Raleigh’s Dorothea Dix Park.
Pre-sale tickets will be available on Dec. 11 at 9 a.m. ET. While the line-up has yet to be revealed, fans can expect Cole’s close collaborators and favorite musical artists to take the stage this year. Last year, SZA, Nicki Minaj, 50 Cent, ScHoolboy Q, and Rae Sremmurd performed, with a host of guest appearances including Central Cee, Lil Durk, and Benny the Butcher.
The buzziest moment from 2024’s fest, however, was from Cole himself. During his headlining performance, the rapper publicly aired out his grievances over his diss track “7 Minute Drill” he released in response to Kendrick Lamar’s featured verse on Future and Metro Boomin’s “Like That.”
“That’s the lamest shit I ever did in my fucking life,” Cole said at the time. “I moved in a way that I spiritually feel bad on,” he continued. “I tried to like, jab my nigga back and I tried to keep it friendly. But at the end of the day, when I listen to it and when it comes out and I see the talk, that shit don’t sit right with my spirit. That shit disrupts my fucking peace.”
After Cole wisely backed out of the Lamar-Drake beef, he later reflected on his decision in single “Port Antonio” released in October, which sees him observe, “They instigate the fuckery because it’s profitable/But singin’ ‘stop the violence’ tunes when dudes in hospitals/I pulled the plug because I’ve seen where that was ’bout to go.”
After Lamar unleashed “Not Like Us” on May 4, he has been widely declared the winner of the rap feud, and has since received five Grammy nominations, including for Record of the Year and Song of the Year. Drake, meanwhile, recently filed a new legal action in Texas alleging Universal Music Group knowingly allowed Lamar to call him a “certified pedophile” as it sought to “drive consumer hysteria and, of course, massive revenues.”
