For the second year in a row, Hot 97 Summer Jam will play the UBS Arena in Elmont on June 2, pulling out all the stops for this 30th anniversary of the nation’s most celebrated hip-hop concert event.
Doja Kat, Davido and Offset headline the show, sponsored by New York City’s longtime hip-hop station WQHT/97.1 FM (“Hot 97”). Also performing is the legendary duo of Redman and Hampstead native Method Men; sexy red; Sleepy Hollow; Tea Grizzly; 41 Kyle Rich; Jennifer Carter; and TaTa.
General-public tickets go on sale Friday at 10 a.m. at Hot97.com and Ticketmaster.com.
Launched on June 21, 1994, at Brendan Byrne Arena in East Rutherford, New Jersey, Hot 97 Summer Jam has remained primarily at that Meadowlands location through various stadium and arena iterations. In 2001 and 2002, it held venues at the Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum in Uniondale and then returned to Long Island last year at the recently opened UBS Arena.
Hampstead born and raised rapper-actor Method Man (born Clifford Smith) first rose to fame in the 1990s as part of the influential Wu-Tang Clan crew. Also performing as a solo act, he played Mary J. Won a Grammy Award for his 1994 duet with Blige, “I’m There for You/All You Need is Me.” In an occasional side project, he began partnering with New Jersey-born Redman (born Reginald Noble) in 1999, appearing together on the Hot 97 Summer Jam that year.
Grammy Award winner Doja Kate (née Amala Dlamini) released the Billboard No. 1 singles “Paint the Town Red” and “Say So” (featuring Nicki Minaj). Her 2022 album “Planet Her” went 2X platinum, meaning 2 million units sold. Nigerian-American rapper Davido (born David Adeleke) makes pop with traditional African elements, and released his third album, “Timeless”, last year. Grammy nominee Offset (real name Kiari Cephus) was part of the platinum trio Migos, whose bandmate Takeoff (né Kirsnik Ball) was killed in a 2022 shooting.
The concert went ahead last year despite a sudden court filing by County Executive Bruce Blackman’s administration three days before the June 4 show. Blackman cited “safety issues that were presented to the county” in a statement. In a court filing in response, former Suffolk County District Attorney Timothy Sini, acting as a lawyer for the concert organizers, wrote: “Nowhere in its papers does the county cite deficiencies in security measures and precautions … nor does it identify any specific security. A threat that prompts him to take the extraordinary step of seeking an injunction against the concert.
Nassau County officials withdrew the filing a day after it was submitted, saying concert organizers would contribute $80,000 to cover the cost of law enforcement’s role in policing the event.
