JMBLYA Keeps Stacking Headliners

J. Cole has been added to a JMBLYA lineup already busting at the seams with hip-hop and trap hitmakers.

The North Carolina rapper/singer joins Cardi B, who last month became the first MC to land three singles in the Top 10 of Billboard’s Hot 100 simultaneously. Her “Motor Sport” collaborators Migos, who performed at JMBLYA last year, just landed atop the albums chart with Culture II. Those stylish Atlanta kinfolk recently boasted 14 tracks on the Hot 100, a feat only previously accomplished by the Beatles.

Guess that makes them the Fab 3.

Fellow JMBLYAer Kevin Gates, whose Islah LP topped the rap albums charts in 2016, got paroled from prison last month after a 30-month sentence for felony gun possession. Pound for pound, no local festival has more hit-making artists than JMBLYA. The traveling Texas trap and hip-hop festival, now in its sixth year, takes over the roughly 25,000-capacity Lot C of Circuit of the Americas on Saturday, May 5.

JMBLYA promoters ScoreMore, the Austin-based company operated by Sascha Guttfreund and Claire Bogle, are day-oners with J. Cole, having helped book his first tour in 2010.

Notable, too, that for the first time JMBLYA’s lineup is devoid of EDM. Rounding out the all-day fest are Playboi Carti, Trippie Redd, Ski Mask the Slump God, Cozz, Killy, and Jack Harlow. Houston royalty Bun B, Trae tha Truth, and DJ Mr. Rogers are on as special guests.

Tickets, which sold out well in advance last year, are on sale now starting at $60.