Little Simz has been named as the curator of this year’s 30th edition of Southbank Centre’s Meltdown Festival.

The rapper, who will perform herself during the London event, will put together a “boundary-breaking” lineup for the 11-day festival, which runs from Thursday 12 June to Sunday 22 June. The first names for 2025 will be announced in the spring.

Previous curators have included Christine and the Queens, Grace Jones, Nile Rodgers, Robert Smith, David Byrne, Yoko Ono, Anohni, Massive Attack, Jarvis Cocker, Patti Smith and David Bowie.

“I’m super-excited to be the 2025 Meltdown festival curator,” says Simz. “My team and I are preparing 11 days of art, music, workshops and more. So many incredible artists have curated this festival so it’s a true honour to be a part of it.”

Little Simz’ Meltdown will feature two weekends of free participatory programming, featuring grassroots collectives and local organisations, as well as “one-of-a-kind” performances. Southbank Centre will also be transformed into a festival open for all.

“We’re incredibly excited to witness the lineup she’ll curate”

“Little Simz’ ability to forge new genre-defying ideas and her ambition to inspire the next generation of creators aligns with what the Southbank Centre’s artistic programme and vision stands for,” Jane Beese, head of contemporary music, Southbank Centre. “We’re incredibly excited to witness the lineup she’ll curate and for the power of her great art, leadership and culture to bring people together on-site for our 30th year.”

The venue’s artistic director Mark Ball adds: “Meltdown has become one of the most enduring and anticipated highlights of the annual music calendar, shaped each year by the spirit, imagination and artistry of its curator.

“Little Simz is becoming such a powerful influence in London and beyond and we’re delighted that for 11 days in June the Southbank Centre will become her cultural playground where she can fully explore her musicianship, her icons and her cultural passions.”

Meltdown 2024 was curated by Chaka Khan and included acts including Emeli Sandé, Lady Blackbird, Bruce Hornsby and Incognito.

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French singer-songwriter Christine and the Queens has been announced as the curator of Southbank Centre’s 2023 Meltdown Festival.

The 34-year-old, who will become the youngest curator in the music, arts and culture festival’s history, will invite artists who have shaped his musical identity to perform on the stages of the Royal Festival Hall, Queen Elizabeth Hall and Purcell Room in London from 9-18 June next year. The first confirmed names will be revealed in the spring.

Christine and the Queens will make his debut at the Southbank Centre tonight, having sold out the Royal Festival Hall for a one-off special as his new, experimental persona, Redcar. The show will see him perform his new album, Redcar les adorables étoiles, in the first instalment in a series of new projects slated for 2023.

“We are incredibly excited to be working with such an ambitious artist”

“Chris will be the youngest-ever curator of Meltdown in its 27-year history, an incredible testament to his international pop prowess,” says Adem Holness, head of contemporary music at the Southbank Centre. “We are incredibly excited to be working with such an ambitious artist who, I am sure, will show us all what more Meltdown can be as a festival and a celebration.”

This year’s Meltdown was curated by Grace Jones, who delivered the second highest grossing edition of the festival after The Cure’s Robert Smith in 2018. Other artists to have curated the festival include David Bowie, Yoko Ono, Patti Smith, Nick Cave, Lee Scratch Perry and Jarvis Cocker.

“Meltdown not only allows us to understand the passions of an artist, but uniquely to see them come to life as a fully-formed festival across the Southbank,” adds Southbank Centre artistic director Mark Ball. “And to get inside Chris’s imagination – an artist whose ideas and inspiration comes from his politics, his history and identity, his love of theatricality and of transgressive underground culture – will be an incredible musical treat for audiences.”

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