Lollapalooza India 2026: Here's why you should listen to these 6 hip-hop artists at the festival

Hip-hop has always been more than music. It’s rhythm, rebellion and reinvention, a culture that started on the streets and grew into a global movement. 

What was once underground in India has become unstoppable. From cypher circles tucked away in city corners to the roar of stadiums, the scene has grown with urgency and imagination. The Gully rap explosion was a spark, but today the flame burns brighter, carried by a generation of artists and fans alike who are reimagining what hip-hop can be.

The lineup of the festival, produced in India by BookMyShow Live, along with global producers, Perry Farrell and C3 Presents, showcases the richness of hip-hop in India not only for artists but listeners and that starts with Carti’s Opium. For one of the most elusive and era-defining collectives in rap to choose this stage for a rare showcase is nothing short of groundbreaking, it’s the kind of moment that rewrites what Indian festivals can be.  And it lands just months after Travis Scott’s long-awaited debut in India, turning momentum into a movement.

Here’s how the line-up tells that story:

Playboi Carti
Carti is a rapper who feels like an atmosphere. The Atlanta-born disruptor turned trap into performance art, ad-libs as scripture, minimalism as maximalism, rage distilled into sound. His era-defining tracks ‘Magnolia’, ‘Sky’ and ‘Stop Breathing’, alongside his latest album Music, where all 30 tracks stormed the Billboard Hot 100, cement him as one of hip-hop’s most radical innovators. Known as King Vamp, he thrives on the fringes while still shaping the centre, bending punk, trap, cloud rap and experimental electronics into a world of chaos and couture colliding. His India debut arrives with his Opium labelmates in tow, turning the stage into an untamed universe of rage and reinvention.

Ken Carson
Carti’s Opium label operates like an ecosystem and Ken Carson is its most explosive branch. Once his mentor’s protégé, Carson has grown into a headline force in his own right. From the halls of Atlanta’s underground to the frontlines of rap’s new wave, his projects X and A Great Chaos tore through charts and festivals, building a cult that moves like an army. His sound is unfiltered rage sharpened into precision, a framework for where the next decade of trap may be headed.

Destroy Lonely
Where others make bangers, Destroy Lonely makes worlds. His work, from No Stylist to If Looks Could Kill, orbits around atmosphere as much as lyric, becoming a touchstone for a generation that thrives on both mayhem and couture. What began as whispers in the underground has become a cult that shadows him city to city, word for word. He’s less performer, more architect of mood, building a religion of bedlam and high fashion for the internet generation.

Homixide Gang
Blood brothers in sound and in spirit, Homixide Gang bring the raw grit of Atlanta’s streets into every verse. Their tracks, ‘5unna’ and ‘Snotty World’, play less like songs and more like detonations. Their unrelenting energy and street-built momentum have stormed through stages worldwide, leaving carnage in their wake. Together, they embody the wild-card unpredictability that keeps hip-hop’s underground alive: noisy, unpolished, uncontainable.

MXRCI
Born in Mohali, raised on FL Studio, MXRCI is the producer who has quietly reshaped modern Punjabi music. From Karan Aujla to Sidhu Moose Wala, his beats became the backbone of an entire scene, balancing folk rhythms with stadium-sized bass. But his reach extends beyond Punjabi rap, with international collabs and Bollywood crossovers, MXRCI proves that India’s regional sounds aren’t niche, they’re global currents.

Pho
Pho isn’t just part of Delhi’s hip-hop movement, she’s redefining what it means. From her days as SpitDope’s first female battler to the nuanced storytelling of ‘Bheetar Bahar’ and the mainstream glow of ‘Lapata’, Pho threads hip-hop, R&B and soul into fearless explorations of identity and vulnerability. She’s magnetic on stage, uncompromising in voice and a crucial reminder that hip-hop’s transformation isn’t just sonic, but also deeply personal.

The bigger picture
With Travis Scott set to bring his stadium-filling CIRCUS MAXIMUS tour to India and Playboi Carti leading the charge at Lollapalooza India 2026, Indian hip-hop fans are in for a treat. This isn’t just about imported sound. With MXRCI and Pho, the local scene asserts its place alongside global heavyweights, crafting an identity that’s rooted in India but unafraid of the world. Hip-hop in India is no longer asking for space. It’s taking it - loud, wild and inevitable.

The General on-sale of tickets for Lollapalooza India 2026 is live on lollaindia.com.

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