For anyone with a love of early-2000s R&B and hip-hop, the line-up poster for this year’s Lovers & Friends festival in Las Vegas is a dreamland. Janet Jackson, Usher, Alicia Keys, Nelly, Ludacris, Gwen Stefani and Lil Wayne are among the big-name acts at the top of the poster with Craig David, Brandy, Monica, Eve and Sean Paul lower down. The fact it was planned as a one-day event meant it would be impossible to see all the big names.
The most common question fans ask when they first hear about the festival is whether it’s even real or a convincing poster made on Photoshop. Lumidee, whose song Never Leave You (Uh Oooh, Uh Oooh) is a staple of any R&B playlist, says she only believed last year’s Lovers & Friends was real when the deposit from the organizers landed in her bank account. “My mama said, ‘It’s not real,’ and I was like, ‘I think it is,’” she jokes.
