St. Paul, Minn., June 25, 2019 – The For the Love Project started as a Community Celebration in Lowertown, St. Paul. The original event focused on the four elements of Hip Hop: emcees, deejays, dancing and visual arts. This year’s fifth year anniversary will take place on Saturday July 6, Noon to 10pm, in Mears Park. The day will include musical performances, dancing, visual arts, community vendors, and various food trucks, with a special consideration for representation from POC and LGBTQIA+ communities.

Admission is free. The headliner of FTL5 will be St. Paul’s own, Heiruspecs. Pre-headliners include: Haphduzn, Lady Midnight and Dwynell Roland. There will be an additional sixteen emcees performing throughout the afternoon. The event will feature three deejays: DJ Just Nine of Astralblak; DJ Frank Castle and DJ Sarah White. The event will also showcase dancers, New Black City, as well as traditional Native artists, The Sampson Bros.

Over the past four years, the event has featured over 100 Minnesota Hip Hop emcees, deejays, dancers and graffiti artists. Originally the event was held in partnership with Bedlam Theatre and Union Depot.

After taking a year off, the event re-emerged at Mears Park for the first time last year and received a glorious reception. For 2019, For the Love, A Community Celebration has changed its name to the For the Love Project in anticipation of the events metamorphosis from a once a year event, to a fully functioning non-profit with a focus on arts and education.

The For the Love Project was born out of a respect of Hip Hop culture and a desire to connect all community. True, there are other wonderful Hip Hop festivals that feature all of the elements that can be found at the For the Love Project event, but our event aims to remove the prohibitive cost to the public to make it accessible not only to the audience but also to artists who may not get a chance to rock the bigger festival stages.

Minnesota’s arts community, and Hip Hop community in particular, is thriving, brilliant and expansive, and the For the Love Project aims to highlight as many artists as possible.