Norfolk’s Cousinz Festival will open Saturday with headliners Erykah Badu, Jermaine Dupri
Missy has a boulevard in Portsmouth.
Pharrell has Something in the Water at the Oceanfront.
And now another member of Hampton Roads’ hip-hop royalty has his own thing, this time in the heart of downtown Norfolk.
The inaugural Cousinz Festival, a one-day music fest co-founded by artist Terrence “Pusha T” Thornton, will take over Scope plaza and Scope on Saturday.
The shows start in the early afternoon with VIP entry starting at 1 p.m. and the main gates opening at 2. DJs will perform through the afternoon on the plaza; those events conclude with a 6 p.m. set by hitmaker Jermaine Dupri, who’s collaborated with Mariah Carey, Destiny’s Child and Usher.
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Scope plaza performances
Norfolk State University Band, 1:45 p.m.
DJ DC, 2 p.m.
Izzy the DJ, 3 p.m.
DJ Envy, 4 p.m.
JAE Murphy, 5 p.m.
Jermaine Dupri, 6 p.m.
Dupri, a rapper and producer, has been a music industry mover and shaker since the early 1990s, when he helped write rap duo Kris Kross’s single “Jump,” which reached No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100. He founded So So Def Recording.
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Scope arena performances
Art of Noise RVA, 6:30 p.m.
Lion Babe, 8 p.m.
Larry June, 9 p.m.
Erykah Badu, 10:15 p.m.
Badu is the festival’s second headliner. She’s known for her soaring and emotionally stirring vocal range; The New Yorker magazine once called her the “Godmother of Soul.”
Her song “Bag Lady” reached No. 6 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 2000, and two years later, “Love Of My Life (An Ode To Hip Hop),” featuring Common peaked at No. 6.
Pusha T found commercial success in the early 2000s as half of the duo Clipse after signing to Pharrell Williams’ Star Trak Entertainment record label.
He called Badu “one of the queens of R&B” and said it was “only right” to have an artist of her stature, and with such a strong fan base, headline the festival’s debut.
He co-founded the Cousinz Festival with his longtime friend and musical collaborator Nathaniel “Fam-Lay” Johnson and Antonio Dowe. Johnson, a former recording artist who lives in Chesapeake, and Dowe, a music management and marketing professional based in Norfolk, previously founded the R&B Block Party. It played its first show in Norfolk in 2022 and has been held 14 times locally and at venues across the country.
The Cousinz Festival, they said, is essentially an expanded version of the Block Party that they hope will embody the laid-back atmosphere of a “large cookout” at a “family reunion.”
“The name Cousinz is just a term of endearment to make sure our 757 community and beyond knows that this is a family affair,” Dowe said.
Colin Warren-Hicks, 919-818-8138, [email protected]
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If you go
When: 1:45 p.m. Saturday
Where: Scope, 201 E. Brambleton Ave., Norfolk
Tickets: Start at $40
Details: cousinzfestival.com