Bonnaroo 2024 Artist Spotlight: Mon Rovîa

Like we’ve been doing for many years now, we’re making it our mission to help you get acquainted with many of our favorite acts from Bonnaroo‘s 2024 lineup. After roaring back to life in 2022, after two years off due to Covid and weather, and feeling fully like its old self again with a great fest last summer, this year marks Bonnaroo’s 21st installment (and 23rd anniversary), boasting not only another great and varied lineup, but also a continuation of some of the big changes and improvements rolled out over the last couple of years, with more flexibility in ticketing and camping, a reimagined “Outeroo” campground area, new activations, and further new ways to Roo. Back once again in its usual June 13-16 timeframe, we’re counting down the days until another great weekend on the farm.

As we dig through the entire schedule, we’ll highlight a spread of performers spanning across genres and stages, big and small, new and old, to bring you some of the most interesting, lesser-known, and most highly-recommended among this year’s crop of artists. And as our time at ‘Roo approaches, we’ll also be bringing you some special features and full list-style daily lineup guides, to help you plan your weekend ahead of the fest. While these previews won’t span every artist, and might omit some more obvious must-see acts, we hope they’ll serve as a way to help you navigate Bonnaroo’s gargantuan lineup, and to make the most of your busy weekend at the fest!

Grab your tickets right here if you haven’t already, and read on for our Bonnaroo Artist Spotlight!

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Adopting the artist moniker Mon Rovîa in honor of his place of birth, Monrovia, Liberia, singer-songwriter Janjay Lowe was adopted by white, Christian, American missionaries at seven years old, rescued from the violence and geopolitical unrest of the Second Liberian Civil War at the turn of the millennium, and brought to America, where he was raised in a drastically different culture and environment than that of his childhood, moving between Florida, Montana, and the Bahamas with his adoptive family, before settling in Chattanooga in college. After listening to mostly Christian pop and gospel as a kid, Janjay was exposed to indie rock in his teens by his foster siblings, instantly falling in love with artists like Bon Iver, Vampire Weekend, Fleet Foxes, and Passion Pit, all of which have had a strong influence on his eclectic, folky indie sound (you can hear some light inspiration from hip hop too, especially in his earlier work, as he also cites Lil Baby, Gunna, and Lil Wayne as favorites). Though, from his upbringing, Mon Rovîa isn’t inherently culturally Appalachian, through those indie folk influences and through the musical ethos of his West African heritage (which, itself, had an often-overlooked influence on Appalachian cultural traditions), he’s landed on a style that feels inextricably linked with the sound and aesthetic of the region, something he’s dubbed Afro Appalachian, favoring a ukulele and penning soulful, folky, comforting, breathtaking, and contemplative songs. He first started getting serious about music in the late 2010s, and began releasing songs more formally at a college friend’s encouragement, earning attention for some lovely early singles and 2020 EP Sunburnt, with debut LP Dark Continent arriving the following year. As he’s refined his sound, though, it’s TikTok that has helped Mon Rovîa reach a much wider audience over the last couple of years, as both the sonically pleasant and lyrically raw nature of his songs have provided perfect background music to countless TikToks, including from celebrities like Bella Hadid, while Janjay’s own videos- calming and accessible, where he makes tea or hangs out in nature or plays snippets of his songs acoustically- have also earned him a fervent following. A recent string of EPs- Act 1: The Wandering and Act 2: Trials last year, and Act 3: The Dying of Self this year- contain some of his most refined, self-reflective, and strongest songs to date, and Mon Rovîa arrives at Bonnaroo as an artist on the cusp of wider and well-deserved mainstream recognition. Aside from a prime afternoon slot on the Who Stage, you can grab brunch and start your Friday morning with his 11 a.m. set at Plaza 7, a.k.a. the Galactic Giddy Up.

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