What do you do if you’re Philadelphia hometown heroes running an annual two-day festival with hurricane rains predicted and a much-anticipated headliner who calls in sick? If you’re the Roots, you pull up your bootstraps and bring in sultry nu-soul icon Maxwell to co-headline with rocker Lenny Kravitz and rapper Meek Mill.
Despite the weather and reclusive R&B dynamo D’Angelo cancelling last minute due to an “unforeseen medical delay,” 2025’s iteration of the Roots Picnic popped off as planned in the mud and the rains of the Mann Center and grassy hills of Fairmount Park.
OK, maybe not so much as planned, as it reportedly took some attendees many hours to even get into the venue, and countless of them had to continuously pour out buckets full of water from their sneakers throughout their Saturday at the Picnic. Perhaps this is why God created the twin notions of outdoor festivals and horrible weather: to test our endurance and devotion to the music.
Starting with the rat-tat-tat exploding attack of GloRilla on Saturday and closing out with Meek Mill at his most dramatic (live video of him entering the Mann complex on a motor bike with police escort to the strains of Phil Collins’ “In The Air Tonight”? Theater!) on Sunday, the Roots Picnic is still the best fest in the nation where hip hop not confined by the feuding of Kendrick Lamar and Drake is represented.
Black Thought, the master of all post-’90s MCs, winding his frenetic, cuttingly concise freestyles through similar verses from an inspired 2 Chainz, a pugilistic Pusha T and surprise guests from Clipse will always be the best bargain in old-school hip-hop education that money can buy. Having a sheer-dressed Latto take her Atlanta-born-and-bred, Pop Rocks vibe into something menacing and hypnotic (yet still radio friendly, if you turned up the static) with newly configured industrial soundscapes and careening metallic rhythms proved that just when you thought chart-topping hip hop had stagnated, someone unlikely reinvents the form, making it sensual and steely.
But credit where credit’s due: So much of the Roots Picnic’s other sounds, beyond rap, were what moved the multitude of needles.
Walking into the grassy (OK, muddy) knolls of the Fairmount Park stage area, feeling the mist in your face and hearing the lilting tilt of British-Sudanese vocalist Elmiene against the backdrop of quietly jazzy electric guitar was a daytime dreamy sound I’ll not soon forget. The same was true of witnessing the light, bright work of Nigerian singer Tems and her halting rhythms on that same stage. The Roots Picnic welcomed Wizkid several years ago, and this set a literal stage for Nigerian and other worldly pop music meant not as a side dish or to be put on separate spaces within their festival, but right next to headliners such as Lil Wayne, Usher and the Fugees. Do that. More.
Also, something that the Roots Picnic must do more often: welcome DJ/producer Rich Medina, who then welcomed lady giants of house music CeCe Peniston and Crystal Waters to thrill non-agist, dancing, electronic-music heads with ’90s classics such as “Finally” and “100% Pure Love.” My complaint? A 3 p.m. set time as opposed to, say, experimental DJ/producer Kaytranada’s explosive light-show-filled 8 p.m. set. Just saying. Snacktime had a nice crowd for its 2:30 p.m. Sunday slot, but the Philly soul/funk party ensemble woulda/coulda won countless more children to its rhythm nation if later in the day.
While Maxwell was a smashingly soulful, albeit slickly sleepy choice to end a rainy Saturday in the mud, the post-sunset, near-close to Sunday’s set—libidinal Lenny Kravitz—was yet another something that the Roots Picnic hasn’t attempted in a minute: the big rock out.
Once upon a time, during its previous incarnations on blacktop as opposed to grass, the Roots welcomed like-minded alt-rock friends in Deerhoof, TV On The Radio, Vampire Weekend, the Black Keys and Tune-Yards to feast on Picnic festival grounds. Not since the Picnic moved to Fairmount Park has there been a rock vibe in the air. Kravitz broke that spell, not immediately—as many R&B fans and hip-hop heads were cool to the swaggering Lenny and his fuzzy, guitar-wielding ensemble. But a faux-sitar-filled, Sound Of Philadelphia-inspired “It Ain’t Over ‘Til It’s Over,” the shimmying likes of “American Woman” and the strutting “Always On The Run” and “Are You Gonna Go My Way” swayed all in Pied Piper style.
Ultimately, on the Roots Picnic meter of excellence—sloppy weather and sloppier muddy aside—the 17th iteration wound up a solid seven out of 10.
