Soundwave promoter AJ Maddah already holds quite a few major cards in the Australian music festival deck.

Along with his flagship annual hard and heavy event, the serial tweeter is also responsible for the growing Harvest festival, which is entering its third edition this November, and added the long-awaited Australian return of the Vans Warped Tour to his music festival repertoire this year.

But an inconspicuous tweet from Maddah has started rumours that he may be adding yet another music event to his duties.

It seems that Maddah was involved in putting together a hip hop music festival with rap superstar Eminem topping the bill of an event looking to succeed where major promoters like Live Nation have failed in establishing an Australian branded hip hop event.

The news came from recent reports that Eminem would be headed to Australia as part of his world tour plans for his new album, MMLP2. Information that came from Herald Sun scuttlebutt Nui Te Koha, who implicated that Maddah was “invited to get involved” in negotiations for presenting the rapper, presumably on the bill for Soundwave 2014.

When asked about the matter on his favourite social media forum, the Soundwave honcho revealed that he was looking to be part of a hip hop event called Rapture.

Maddah however withdrew his offer when it was made clear that Eminem was only interested in a headline tour rather than a festival, but with the little information available, it doesn’t necessarily rule out that Rapture would be going ahead with or without Eminem.

Interestingly, Maddah was also courting another rap act for an Australian visit recently, putting in offers for the Ice T-fronted Body Count to be part of the Soundwave 2014 lineup, but negotiations fell through due to conflicts in scheduling between the music festival and Ice T’s recurrent TV role on Law & Order SVU. 

In a wonderful bit of irony, Ice T – who once rapped about killing cops in Body Count – has played a detective on the television series since 2000, with filming commitments putting the kabosh on negotiations.


The Rapture hip hop festival idea would seem an odd idea for Maddah considering his opinion on the many hip hop flops Down Under. Just as he voiced in a series of tweets with one of the writers at Music Feeds,

“Too many dodgy promoters. Too many dodgy agents. Too many dodgy managers. Too many dickhead artists,” said the outspoken Maddah on the topic; adding in a further series of tweets: “It’s plain larceny on the part of fake agents and managers selling acts they don”t have with money up front. Or promoters lying about acts and then not refunding; or “artists” that can’t be fucked getting on a flight or leaving hotel. It’s just 1 giant citcle [sic] jerk of thieves and arseholes.”

As it turns out though, the links between Rapture festival and Eminem go much deeper and pre-date Maddah’s involvement. A quick Google search reveals mention of Rapture in a Facebook post regarding Eminem’s last visit to Australia back in December 2011, with support from Lil’ Wayne and Hilltop Hoods, making it sound as if the rapper would make a return to headline a hip hop event in 2012 – which obviously never materialised.

Elsewhere in the dusty corners of the internet, Eminem fan forum TRSHADY has a (very sweary) thread about the same 2011 tour that makes reference to a promotional video shown at the Sydney concert hyping up that “Eminem will be returning every year with some of the biggest names in hip-hop to put on a hip-hop festival called Rapture.”

So whether Rapture is a long-stalled festival idea tied to Eminem that needed Maddah’s expertise to get going, or simply the vapourware of what the Soundwave promoter calls another “dodgy promoter”, there’s a few things we can glean from what little information is available: we can expect a hip-hop or hardcore rap act in the second round of acts to be added to the Soundwave 2014 bill and that Maddah isn’t adverse to adding another music festival to his already bursting, blockbuster repertoire.

It would be a risky move, even for the maverick promoter, considering the current state of the music festival market in which even major players are feeling the squeeze.

In the last 48 hours alone, there’s been news that the (company formerly known as) Future Entertainment Pty Ltd is entering liquidation after it reportedly transferred its Future Music and Summadayze assets to new companies. Additionally, Bluesfest are struggling with the launch of indigenous arts and culture festival, Boomerang, while Pyramid Rock Festival announced the cancellation of its 2013 edition due to “tough economic conditions.”

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