Posted by Andrew Unterberger on 07/31/2012 at 5:17 PM News

The announcement of more artists playing Philadelphia’s Jay-Z-curated Made in America festival had been pending for so long that we were starting to wonder if the “And More!” promised were just going to end up being a whole bunch of third-tier Maybach Music Group and Odd Future members. (“Guys! Guys! We got Rockie Fresh and Syd tha Kyd!”) Nope—turns out the fest had a couple legitimate headliners still to announce, grabbing big names from hip-hop’s past and present with Run-D.M.C. and Drake.

Drake, you may remember, had initially been reported along with the rest of the big names (Jay-Z, Pearl Jam, Skrillex, Rick Ross, etc.) of Made in America, but his name was quickly retracted, as his involvement was unconfirmed. Now, it appears that Drizzy will indeed be in attendance, and the potential for cross-pollination between he and the number of other artists in attendance he’s collaborated with in the past—Jay-Z, Rick Ross, Meek Mill, Rita Ora—is fairly exciting. Meanwhile, the gig will be Run-D.M.C.’s official first performance in a decade (a hosting honor that was previously going to belong to November’s Fun Fun Fun Fest in Texas), since the murder of third member Jam-Master Jay in 2002.

Exciting stuff, and just the tip of the iceberg for the newly announced artists, led by native Philadelphian Jill Scott, and which also include DJs Alesso, Nicky Romero and DJ Shadow, rockers Chris Cornell, The Hives and Gary Clark, Jr., and, uh, whoever Otto Knows is. If you’re not making it down/up to the City of Brotherly Love this Labor Day weekend, you’re just not trying hard enough.

[Philadelphia Weekly]