NEWS
The Great Escape Festival has added 120 names to its 2025 line-up and announced a spotlight show with Pete Doherty and Warmduscher.
Taking place in Brighton from May 14-17, the festival welcomes Doherty and Warmduscher for a special Spotlight Show curated by Doherty’s record label, Strap Originals. It takes place at the Deep End venue on Brighton’s beachfront.
Further additions to the festival’s weekend bill include: Jordan Adetunji, Lynks, The K’s, Donny Benét, The Moonlandingz, Black Fondu, Real Farmer, Shortstraw, Bold Love, and Namesbliss.
The festival has also shared that The Road To Great Escape, its annual showcase of events, will take place in the preceding week at Glasgow’s King Tut’s (May 9-10) and Dublin’s Whelan’s (May 12-13). Here, some of the acts who are billed for the festival will perform in their hometowns before going down to Brighton to play at The Great Escape 2025.
Last year over 125 artists boycotted the event due to its ties with Barclays Bank, who were accused of investing in a number of companies that supply arms to Israel. In October it was announced that Barclays will no longer be a partner of The Great Escape Festival in 2025.
Campaign group Bands Boycott Barclays shared on social media: “CONFIRMED: Barclays is not a partner of The Great Escape 2025! BOYCOTTS WORK!”
“After hundreds of artists and music industry professionals took collective action in solidarity with Palestine this year, Barclays are no longer in any way affiliated with The Great Escape Festival!”
Every artist that had been booked to play the 2024 opening party in Brighton cancelled their appearance, alongside more than 100 others, including Picture Parlour, Miso Extra and Alfie Templeman. Over 1,200 artists including IDLES, Squid and Massive Attack also signed an open letter addressed to The Great Escape, asking them to remove Barclays as a sponsor.
The festival has been running since 2006, and previous performers include Charli XCX, Sam Fender and Fontaines DC.
NEWS
Doechii may be getting a lot of flack from haters these days, but it surely feels less significant amid a lot more love, development, and pressure from everyone else. One aspect of her skyrocketing career that many listeners are curious about is how she will "fit in" with other femcees, which is a bit of a dismissive notion boxing all female rappers into the same box. Nevertheless, at least the Tampa native has another superstar in her corner. During a recent livestream with fans, Megan Thee Stallion revealed that a collaboration with her is one of the things she wants to manifest the most for her next project.
"I see Doechii, b***h, I love Doechii," Megan Thee Stallion remarked of the ALLIGATOR BITES NEVER HEAL creative. "I do want to do a song with Doechii. That is on my album wishlist. But I really have no song right now. "I feel like Doechii is the kind of person that you’d have to be in the studio to make a song with. I would like to hear a beat that she would like to rap over. Also, challenging myself to rap over beats I would not normally rap over, without losing myself."
Given that they have skill sets and interests in common – plus their track record of other female collabs – these two might spark magic in the studio together. This joins other developments that bode well for Meg's next album. Plies, for example, recently, dropped his copyright lawsuit against Megan Thee Stallion over her "Wanna Be" collab with GloRilla and Cardi B that sampled Soulja Boy. Hopefully that experience prevents more sample clearance misunderstandings in the future.
Meanwhile, Doechii will definitely drop a new album later in 2025, which will be her studio debut. Her previous mixtape won Best Rap Album at the Grammys this year, so who knows what a big debut will yield? It's also a good opportunity for Megan Thee Stallion to hop on, although this hypothetical collab would likely feel welcome on either femcee's records. In any case, we're keeping our fingers crossed and hoping that any link-up lives up to its potential.
