The first edition of Golden Coast, a new major festival dedicated to rap, will be held on September 13 and 14, 2024 near Dijon. The ambition is to become “the benchmark rap festival in France”, tells AFP Emmanuel Hoog, general director of the Combat Media group, already behind the Rock en Seine festival and that of Inrocks in Paris and its region.
Among the first names in the programming Booba and SCH will be among the artists drawn from the catalog of French and European rap for the inaugural edition. Before headliners from other continents hoped for in future years. The festival will take place on the former air base 102 near Dijon, able to accommodate “several tens of thousands of people, a site which allows it to grow in duration and size in the future,” explains Emmanuel Hoog. The programming is intended to be “transgenerational, so that young and old audiences can find each other”.
The name of the festival is a nod to the department of Côte-d’Or (Golden Coast in English) and to the early days of hip-hop in the United States, fueled by the rivalry of rappers from the East Coast to New -York (East Coast) and West Coast to Los Angeles (West Coast).
As revealed in Les Echos, the model targeted is that of Hellfest, a festival dedicated to metal, which has become an international blockbuster of its kind, organized in Clisson, a small town in the middle of the vineyards in Loire-Atlantique.
Dijon is located between Lyon and Paris, two large population areas and two transport platforms. “The festival is 10-15 minutes by bike from Dijon, we thought in terms of sustainable and eco-responsible development,” insists Emmanuel Hoog. The other reference is located in Belgium with Les Ardentes, a festival entirely dedicated to rap.
This new festival is not only intended to be musical but structured around the entire hip-hop culture, which this year celebrated its 50th anniversary in the United States and its 40th anniversary in France.