Bonnaroo 2024 Artist Spotlight: Armand Hammer

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!

LEARN

An acclaimed and decade-spanning teamup of two of the most talented MCs in hip hop- New York by way of DC rapper billy woods and native New York rapper and producer Elucid- duo Armand Hammer‘s formal debut was in 2013 with mixtape Half Measures and buzzworthy first album Race Music, and the following year’s Furtive Movements EP, however their collaboration spanned several years prior, as they featured on each other’s solo work (another famous 2010s hip hop duo, Run the Jewels, had similar origins). Running parallel to their respective and continued solo careers, Armand Hammer put out a fantastic string of records in the 2010s, refining their experimental, underground production style and sharp, philosophical, and abstract lyrical prowess across LPs like 2017’s Rome and 2018’s Paraffin. 2020’s Shrines saw a hard-hitting array of producers and collaborators come into the fold, like Earl Sweatshirt and R.A.P. Ferreira, and 2021 teamup with producer The Alchemist, Haram, attracted a significant amount of high praise and widespread attention, helping further boost the group beyond their underground beginnings, propelled by singles like “Falling Out the Sky” and “Sir Benni Miles.” The pair’s most recent LP, last year’s We Buy Diabetic Test Strips, marks their most quintessential, innovative, and best representative effort to date, featuring the like of JPEGMafia, El-P, and Benjamin Booker, and a shift towards more live instrumentation in their production. Though perhaps lacking in as many flashy, mainstream hip hop artists on the lineup this year as some others, Bonnaroo’s below the line hip hop talent is sneaky good this summer, and if you’re a fan of real, substantive hip hop (and dig some of the other artists we’ve profiled already like Joeybada$$ and MIKE), we encourage you to start your Sunday afternoon early with that’s sure to be a fantastic performance from Armand Hammer!