*Rap mogul Jermaine Dupri will mark the 25th anniversary of his groundbreaking record label So So Def with a multi-city anniversary concert tour.
Dupri told The Associated Press on Monday (July 30) that The “So So Def 25th Anniversary Cultural Curren$y” tour will feature himself, Xscape, Da Brat, Jagged Edge, Bow Wow, Anthony Hamilton, Bone Crusher, Youngbloodz, Dem Franchize Boyz and J-Kwon.
The 11-city tour starts Oct. 14 in Washington, D.C. and ends in Los Angeles on Nov. 2. A show will also be held Oct. 21 in Atlanta, where Dupri was raised.
Dupri said his aim for the tour is to remind fans how influential So So Def Recordings has been to the culture of hip-hop and R&B music.
He said the artists connected to the label are like “cultural currency” — people of great value to the world of hip-hop. “I feel like with my artists and even myself, people don’t pay enough attention to how much we mean to the culture and how much So So Def meant to breaking the South and making people pay attention to Atlanta,” he added.
After founding the label as a teen, Dupri’s guidance of So So Def helped to define an entire genre of Southern hip-hop in the 1990s. It rose to success through music acts including preteen stars Kriss Kross and Bow Wow, female rapper Da Brat and R&B group Jagged Edge. Dupri was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in June and earned a Grammy for best R&B song in 2005 as one of the songwriters on Mariah Carey’s hit “We Belong Together.”
The rapper-producer called the anniversary tour a “blessing.”
“This is perfect timing” he said. “This is the 25th anniversary of a black-owned record company that put out multiple artists and enough artists to do our own tour. We’re blessed basically.”
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