On Wednesday, April 10, the University announced Flo Milli as the headliner for the upcoming Spring Fair 2024 concert. The artist was announced at an event on Keyser Quad at 7 p.m. — students waited until sundown for the reveal.
The concert will take place on Saturday, April 27 at 8 p.m., and tickets are currently on sale through CampusGroups. The event is being organized by the Office of Leadership Engagement and Experiential Development (LEED) and will be held at the Ralph S. O’Connor Recreation Center.
In an interview with The News-Letter, junior Aimee Arash-Ajayi described her thoughts on Flo Milli as the upcoming Spring Fair Concert headliner.
“I like her music,” she said. “I think [Flo Milli] was a good selection. I think she has a lot of good music, and she’s pretty popular, especially on TikTok.”
From Mobile, Ala., Flo Milli is an American rapper who rose to prominence in 2019 with her single “Beef FloMix” and her follow-up “In the Party.” Her music grew popular through TikTok, Instagram and other social media platforms. Flo Milli’s albums have received critical acclaim, and she was recently nominated for several awards, including the MTV Video Music Awards and the MTV Europe Music Awards for Push Performance of the Year.
Some students at Hopkins are unfamiliar with Flo Milli’s music but still supported LEED’s selection of the 2024 Spring Fair headliner. Though junior Sage Zhang had never listened to Flo Milli’s music before, she voiced her support for the upcoming performance in an interview with The News-Letter.
“If most people voted for her, I think she’s a good choice,” Zhang said. “I’m a junior, so I don’t have many high expectations for [the concert], but as long as people love her, she’s going to be great.”
But while many students like Arash-Ajayi and Zhang support the selection of the rapper as headliner for the Spring Fair 2024 Concert, others were unsure about the selection. Kirsten Amemastro, a freshman, explained her thoughts on the negative commentary surrounding Flo Milli’s selection in her interview with The News-Letter.
“I’ve seen quite a bit of [controversy] on Sidechat, where somebody said that they don’t think that Flo Milli’s music is accessible, and that it’s really only for Black people,” she said. “I don’t think they use that word correctly — I don’t think she’s not accessible. She’s literally all over TikTok.”
Sidechat, an anonymous social media platform with a portal exclusively devoted to Hopkins students, has been populated with several less-than-favorable reviews of LEED’s choice of Flo Milli. While some were simply unfamiliar with her music, other students claimed they were hoping for bigger-name artists. Some argued on the platform that they were hoping for pop music, claiming that Flo Milli’s music isn’t accessible for most Hopkins students — comments that gained significant backlash from fans and supporters.
Ticket sales went live on Monday, April 15 at 12 p.m. While tickets for last year’s Kehlani concert sold out in one hour, sales are slower this year, with a little over 600 registered attendees over the course of seven hours.
Amemastro described her reservations about purchasing a ticket in an interview with The News-Letter.
“[CampusGroups didn’t] disclose the price to me earlier, so I didn’t know until I went to see how much it was,” she said. “I think that was the biggest thing — the price.”
Tickets are currently set at $30. Many students were surprised at the amount, which caused them to rethink their plans for the concert after going to purchase a ticket on CampusGroups. However, not all students were deterred from the concert due to the surprise price tag. Freshman Kiki Bejide shared her experience purchasing tickets for the concert in an interview with The News-Letter.
“What attracted me [to the concert] was the Instagram posts and all of the people talking about it,” she said. “It wasn’t too hard [to buy tickets]. Sometimes it’s kind of hard to find the specific [event] for the right day, but besides that it was pretty straightforward.”
In an email to The News-Letter, LEED Associate Director Charles O. Norman III described his thoughts on the upcoming concert.
“I expect the concert to be a great experience for students the way it has been the last two years,” he wrote. “It's a time for students to let loose and have fun before reading period and finals begin.”
Editor’s Note, 2024: This article has been updated to include a response from LEED.
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