Rappers Ludacris and Nelly are on the line-up for a music festival dubbed the “MAGA Music Fest” and it has eyebrows raising.
The rappers will join Kid Rock, Creed, and other performing acts at the 2026 Rock The Country festival in eight cities across the United States. The event will celebrate America’s 250th anniversary with mostly country and rock music.
While the event isn’t a political gathering, its celebration of patriotism and red-state aesthetics has critics labeling it a “MAGA Music Fest.” Per the press release, the Rock The Country festival is a “movement bringing together hard-working Americans to celebrate freedom.”
Other artists on the line-up include Jelly Roll, Jason Aldean, Blake Shelton, and Creed.
Social media reacts
Since the line-up announcement, fans of Ludacris have expressed confusion while others seemingly expected this from Nelly. The pair have been slammed as “sellouts” and “cash chasers,” by various social media users.
“Jelly Roll always seemed like a genuinely good guy but I just knew deep down he had to be a punk. Smdh. But LUDACRIS?? My dude…. The hip-hop community’s descent into MAGA needs to be studied,” one user wrote.
Another user called out the placement of Nelly and Ludacris’ name being last on the headliners list, suggesting that it was intentional.
“Despite Ludacris and Nelly being two of the biggest people performing, they put their names last on the first block of names. If that isn’t an allegory for what tokenism gets you, IDK what is. I am surprised they didn’t put them at the bottom,” they wrote on X.
Nelly previously caught heat for his performance at a Trump inauguration event last year. The St. Louis-raised rapper insisted that there was no political motive or endorsement behind his performance at Trump’s inauguration.
In a June 27 interview on HOT 97’s Ebro in the Morning, Nelly expressed that people were spinning the narrative. “See this is what I’m saying, where did you get pro-Donald anything? What you had was respect for the office, and it’s great how people spin narratives to things I think best fit whatever they’re against, instead of giving a brother the exact fundamental of what he did, what he said. Nobody’s doing that anymore. Everybody’s, ‘Oh, oh, if you did this, you are for him.’”
Nelly is scheduled to perform at the Rock the Country concert in Hamburg, New York, with Kid Rock and Hank Williams Jr., while Ludacris is slated for the Anderson, South Carolina, and Ocala, Florida, shows alongside artists such as Creed and Blake Shelton. So far, Nelly and Ludacris do not appear to have commented on their inclusion in the right-leaning festival, even as comments about them and their participation continue to grow online.