Philadelphia natives and legendary hip-hop/neo soul band The Roots celebrated their 7th annual Roots Picnic with headliner Snoop Dogg and performances by Jhené Aiko, Action Bronson, Janelle Monae, Roman GianArthur, Emily Wells, Chill Moody to name a few.
The concert took place at the city's festival pier and had two stages facing each other, as fans stood in the middle, constantly turning around for the back-to-back performances, which ran smoothly and on time.
Although, all the bands had strong performances in the sunny 75-degree weather, one that may have left a major impression is 32-year-old singer and composer Emily Wells from Amarillo, Texas. The starlet was one of the first performers on stage, and if you weren't there, you missed a whole production.
The "Becomes The Color" singer had a total of eight instruments surrounding her as she produced her whole set before belting her lyrics on stage. Wells said she was extremely excited performing for the Roots, but more so for the excited crowd, "It was so loving! Everyone was so loving, I loved it and you know these kinds of shows, I sometimes come out and I'm like 'oh damn' because it's kind of like a surreal experience, and then you remember you have hands and you just do things," Wells said.
As the crowd thickened, people rushed through the sea of people to get a good view of singer Jhené Aiko's set. The laid back style of singing soothed the crowd as she serenade them with hits from her "Sail Out" album. As cameras panned into fans in the front row view, everyone lip-synced all her lyrics with the same emotions she sang with. As her first time performing for the festival, sources said that the singer arrived to Philadelphia three hours before her set, and still managed to rip the stage seeming rather pleased of her performance and the crowd's reaction, "It was great! I love Philadelphia," Jhené said before being rushed away by her entourage.
In addition to the soulful R&B sounds that graced the stage, New York rapper, Action Bronson literally monkeyed around getting fans back on the hype side as the night grew closer to an end.
"Unbelievable, I had a wonderful time," Bronson said. Known for throwing fans off the stage, the 30-year-old celebrity said that he was a bit reserved this time around, "Not this time. It was a real calm show. I climbed like a monkey on like 14 monkey bars. Jumped on top on some sort of hitch truck that was just around. It was fun! I just love the feeling of everyone around."
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