Summerfest presented by American Family Insurance announced today that LIL WAYNE, SNOOP DOGG, and SCHOOLBOY Q will headline the American Family Insurance Amphitheater, closing out the festival on July 7, 2019. It will be the only concert in the country featuring these three rap all-stars.
Having sold millions of albums worldwide and garnered four GRAMMY awards, LIL WAYNE is one of the most successful and critically lauded artists in Hip-Hop. Touted rap’s first rock star, he released his first project at the age of 12 and went on to release his first solo album in 1999 when he was just 17. He released his first installment of his legendary Tha Carter series in 2004 before releasing three others, including the landmark Tha Carter III in 2008. LIL WAYNE also holds the record for the most entries on the Billboard Hot 100 chart by a male solo artist with 109 entries, having surpassed the record previously set by Elvis Presley. LIL WAYNE is also a celebrated author who released his memoir “Gone Till November” in October of 2016, chronicling his experience in Rikers Island. Outside of his iconic music career, Lil Wayne has continued on as the CEO of his own Young Money Records which will this year release the much anticipated Tha Carter V (in conjunction with Republic Records).
One of the most iconic figures to emerge from the early ’90s G-funk era, SNOOP DOGG evolved beyond his hardcore gangsta rap beginnings, becoming a lovable pop culture fixture with forays into television, football coaching, and reggae and gospel music. Introduced to the world through Dr. Dre’s The Chronic, SNOOP DOGG quickly became one of the most famous stars in rap, partially due to his drawled, laconic rhyming, as well as the realistic violence implied by his lyrics. His 1993 debut effort Doggystyle became the first debut album to enter the charts at number one.
The solo Da Game Is to Be Sold Not to Be Told, Snoop’s first effort for No Limit, followed in 1998; No Limit Top Dogg appeared a year later, and Dead Man Walkin’ the year after that. Tha Last Meal followed in December of that same year. The heavy release schedule resulted in varying musical quality from album to album, but by the turn of the century, Snoop had become such a cultural phenomenon that his albums became almost secondary to the personality behind them. An autobiography appeared in 2001, followed by a stream of movie roles in several high-profile pictures. Late in 2002, SNOOP DOGG released his first album for Capitol, Paid tha Cost to Be da Bo$$. He then switched to Geffen for 2004’s R&G (Rhythm & Gangsta): The Masterpiece. The hit album spawned Snoop’s first number one single, the Pharrell Williams-produced “Drop It Like It’s Hot,” as well as the hit “Signs” with Justin Timberlake and Charlie Wilson. R&G was followed a year later by Welcome to tha Chuuch: Da Album, a collection of tracks from the Welcome to the Chuuch mixtape series.
In 2011, he released Doggumentary, an album he considered the sequel to his classic debut. Also arriving that same year was a feature film with Khalifa, Mac and Devin Go to High School, along with its accompanying soundtrack. After a 2012 trip to Jamaica, Snoop Dogg returned rechristened as Snoop Lion, and with the help of producer Diplo, he released his first all-reggae album, Reincarnated, on RCA in 2013. Another name change came later in the year when he became Snoopzilla and joined modern funkster Dâm-Funk for the project/album 7 Days of Funk. A return to Snoop Dogg came in 2015 when he partnered with Pharrell Williams for the hip-hop effort Bush. The album included the single “Peaches N Cream” and featured guest appearances from Stevie Wonder, Justin Timberlake, Robin Thicke, and Charlie Wilson. Coolaid, a back-to-basics effort for which Swizz Beatz served as executive producer, was released in 2016.
Mixing anthems with socially conscious numbers, rapper SCHOOLBOY Q spent three years in the mixtape underground before launching his career properly in 2011. The first mixtape, the autobiographical Schoolboy Turned Hustla, landed in 2008 and quickly caught the attention of Kendrick Lamar and Top Dawg Entertainment. Lamar would form the Black Hippy collective with ScHoolboy along with Jay Rock and Ab-Soul, and the Top Dawg label would sign the artist. His Gangster & Soul mixtape landed in 2009, and Top Dawg released his official debut, Setbacks, in 2011.
In 2012, Top Dawg announced they had signed a joint venture deal with Interscope and Aftermath, which saw Lamar’s debut album get a full release. Later that year, SCHOOLBOY Q announced he was recording his third album and would be the second member of Black Hippy to benefit from the deal. After a series of mysterious tweets in 2013, Q announced that the release would be called Oxymoron, but nearly a year passed before the dark and abstract album — which featured a whole host of guest producers and vocalists was released in February 2014. Nevertheless, it debuted at number one on the Billboard 200 and pushed the single “Studio” into the Top 40. A worldwide tour took up most of 2015, and 2016 saw the “That Part” single drop as a preview of that year’s album, Blank Face LP, which debuted at number two.
In 2018, he linked up with 2 Chainz and Saudi for the track “X” from the TDE-curated Black Panther soundtrack. Another contribution to a film soon followed, landing ScHoolboy on the Creed 2 soundtrack with 2 Chainz and Mike WiLL Made-It on “Kill ‘Em with Success.” Three years after Blank Face, he returned his focus to his solo material on “Numb Juice.”