Where have all the urban music festivals in the UK gone?

Urban music or ‘black music’ as it’s otherwise known, has made a huge resurgence in the UK over recent years. The rise of grime especially and the ever increasing influence of US artists on modern day British culture has meant that the popularity, and demand for this genre of music has done the same – but where are the festivals dedicated to this type of music?

Many festivals nowadays include a wide range of music within their line-up – take Reading and Leeds Festival as an example, this was originally a rock festival, but now includes all manner of genres. So are the days of the single genre festival gone? No, is the short answer to that, but it is becoming increasingly difficult for these kind of festivals to survive. There have been a number of urban music festivals over the last few years that have been dis-continued for one reason or another: Born & Bred, a festival designed to celebrate the soundsystem culture of London and Boom Bap which was advertised as the ‘UKs largest hip hop festival’ are no longer part of the festival calendar.

There are a select few urban festivals that still stand strong within the festival scene. The most well know is Wireless, which attracts some of the most sought after national and international artists over an action packed weekend in London. Strawberries and Creem Festival celebrates UK black music and the underground scene, this has made an increasing amount of noise on the festival scene over the last few years, hugely growing in popularity. The likes of Lovebox, Mutiny Festival and El Dorado incorporate the urban scene too and are well worth a visit if you’re looking for this kind of music.

It feels like the festival scene is somewhat catching up with the demand for this genre of music, and the easiest fix is to incorporate it within the festival’s existing format. You can wholly understand not wanting to create a new festival amongst the hundreds currently in the UK, many of which fail to survive their first year, however, the demand for festivals is increasing so now might be the time...