The Best Dreamville Fest Moments of All Time
From Drake and J. Cole sharing the stage to Lil Wayne and T.I. reuniting, here are the greatest Dreamville Fest moments of all time.
After six years, J. Cole’s annual Dreamville Fest is coming to an end.
The fifth and final Dreamville Fest will go down at Dorothea Dix Park in Raleigh, North Carolina, this weekend (April 5 and 6, 2025). The festival made the announcement last December in a press release, saying, “What a ride it’s been… We can’t thank y’all enough for all the memories we’ve shared.”
And what a ride it has been. Cole and company hosted the first festival on April 6, 2019, in Raleigh, just a few hundred miles from the rapper’s hometown of Fayetteville. Over the years, I’ve attended more than a dozen music festivals, including every single Dreamville Fest. What sets Dreamville apart from other popular rap festivals is that it feels more like a family reunion than an overcrowded event. Raleigh has a population of around 500,000 people, so the faces are familiar, but the big names still show up.
Over the last six years, the festival has hosted impressive performers—Drake, 50 Cent, Burna Boy, Nicki Minaj, SZA, and Usher have all graced the main stage. In that time, Dreamville Fest has ballooned to host over 100,000 attendees at the event, creating dozens of unforgettable moments in the process.
The final Dreamville Fest will feature performances by Lil Wayne with the Hot Boys, 21 Savage, PARTYNEXTDOOR, and, of course, J. Cole, who will be headlining the weekend, as he always does.
To celebrate, I wanted to take a look back at the six best moments in the festival’s history.
6.JID performing “Stick” for the first time
Year: 2022
Right before Dreamville Fest 2022, J. Cole’s collective dropped their D-Day: A Gangsta Grillz Mixtape, which was essentially Revenge of the Dreamers IV if it was hosted by DJ Drama. That tape opens with the explosive “Stick,” which features JID, Kenny Mason, Sheck Wes, and Cole.
The track is really the only mosh pit anthem that Dreamville—as a collective—has under their belt. And despite Dreamville Fest not being the rager-center that Rolling Loud or Summer Smash is, when JID performed the track for the first time—just days after it dropped—it flipped the entire park upside down. The raw energy of the track, paired with JID’s breath control and how he’s able to control a crowd, made for one of the best performances of the weekend. The song would go on to become a staple for JID shows going forward.
When I met up with him a few weeks after Dreamville Fest to profile him, he had a cast on his wrist. He accidentally broke it performing “Stick” at Governor’s Ball two months later.
5.Lil Wayne and T.I. Reunite and Break Bread
Year: 2022
Lil Wayne, T.I., Jeezy were billed to be a part of DJ Drama’s Gangsta Grillz set at Dreamville Fest 2022 set. But many were curious if TIP and Wayne would perform on stage at the same time after their public feud in 2016 (which stemmed from the Atlanta rapper disagreeing with Wayne’s comments about the Black Lives Matter movement.)
It turned out that Drama was the perfect intermediary for the two parties, and Raleigh was Geneva for a peace treaty. The two hit the stage together for the classic mixtape series tribute. “Shout out to the muthafuckin’ King T.I. you already know what it is,” Weezy told the crowd at the show. “That’s my real muthafuckin’ brother right there. That’s my muthafuckin daughter’s uncle, y’all don’t even understand, man.”
4.Usher headlining night one
Year: 2023
Dreamville Fest 2023 will be remembered as the best lineup the festival has ever seen, with Drake and Cole headlining night two. The weekend kicked off with Usher serenading the massive crowd on night one.
This was before Usher performed at the Super Bowl halftime show. During his set, he ran through some of his biggest hits like “My Boo,” “Burn,” and more. He also played a funny trick on the crowd by making them think he was about to bring out Beyoncé during the middle of the set. The Atlanta legend looked right at home performing in front of the Southern crowd. He was backed by a full live band with no back tracking, proving why he’s still one of the best active musical showmen.
3.Drake’s entire co-headlining performance
Year: 2023
When it was announced that Drake would be co-headlining Dreamville Fest 2023’s night two with J. Cole, the streets were in disarray. And The Boy did not disappoint, joining Cole for a performance that lasted nearly two hours.
It’s still wild that this moment occurred, especially considering the rap war that would come. But that’s what makes Drake’s performance even more special—it’s something that will never happen again.
Drake set the tone by coming out to his Travis Scott collab, "SICKO MODE," before running through some of his classic tracks like "HYFR," "Started From the Bottom," and "God’s Plan." (The setlist was very similar to the one used during his It’s All a Blur tour.)
And he didn’t make the moment all about himself; he brought out a flurry of guest performances from GloRilla, Lil Uzi Vert, Lil Wayne, and 21 Savage, each performing at least one of their own hits. Drake was in prime form at Dreamville Fest 2023, and he still made room for Cole to do his thing and close out the greatest weekend the festival has ever had.
2.J. Cole bringing out Central Cee, Lil Durk, Lil Yachty, and more
Year: 2024
crowned J. Cole the Best Rapper Alive for 2023, thanks to his ridiculous feature run that year. His headlining set at Dreamville Fest 2024 felt like a love letter to all the features he’s killed over the past few years. Cole brought out rap contemporaries like Central Cee, Lil Yachty, 6LACK, Benny the Butcher, and Lil Durk to perform the tracks they’d done together.
It was a powerful display of how much of a community Cole has built in the rap game over his long career—and how other artists are willing to show up for him.
That said, a lot of Cole’s set this year was overshadowed by the apology to Kendrick Lamar. But that moment was just a small blip in what was otherwise one of the festival’s best sets.
1.J. Cole performing his “Johnny P’s Caddy” verse over “Devil In a New Dress”
Year: 2023
In 2024, one of J. Cole’s most celebrated mixtapes, Friday Night Lights—a project delayed due to sample clearance issues—finally hit streaming platforms. But before that, while Drake opted to bring out a flurry of special guests, Cole took a moment to connect with his OG fans during his 2023 Dreamville Fest performance. He performed the first few bars of his classic track “Villematic,” before seamlessly transitioning to rap his entire verse from “Johnny P’s Caddy” over the “Devil In a New Dress” beat.
For diehard Cole fans, this was an incredibly special moment, especially considering the significance of “Villematic.” The track was pivotal in putting Cole on Jay-Z’s radar and eventually landing him a deal with Roc Nation.
Cole shared this story on his Inevitable podcast series last year, and this performance marked one of the first times he rapped the fan-favorite verse live, making the moment even more memorable. It became the most unforgettable moment in Dreamville Fest history, encapsulating everything that makes J. Cole and Dreamville special—elite verses, attention to detail in the performance, and an unwavering connection to the OG tracks that helped Cole build the foundation for his own festival.
