Who Should Play Your Favorite Miami Music Festival in 2024?

Quick: Which of your favorite musical acts do you want to see at III Points? What about Ultra or Rolling Loud? Speculating over festival lineups is a music fan's favorite pastime, so we at New Times decided to do the same. Below are our recommendations for this year's upcoming slate of music festivals in Miami.

This isn't a comprehensive list of Miami area festivals — we've left out some events that are about to happen (Vibra Urbana) or taking the year off (Okeechobee, which wants your lineup suggestions for 2025). It's also not meant to be a serious list of suggestions, so if your fave isn't listed below, don't get too heated! Remember, this is all in good fun.

Montreaux Jazz Festival: André 3000

Last year, André Benjamin did something unprecedented: He made young people care about jazz. The former Outkast member hadn't released music for years, becoming something of a mythical figure for turning up in random places with a flute. Then, in November, he surprise-dropped New Blue Sun, an entirely instrumental record focused around his flute playing, making light of the inherent absurdity in song titles such as "I Swear, I Really Wanted to Make a 'Rap' Album but This Is Literally the Way the Wind Blew Me This Time." (Incredibly, that song set the record as the longest song to chart on the Billboard Hot 100.) The thing is, New Blue Sun isn't really a novelty project — Three Stacks actually teamed up with some esteemed musicians, including keyboardist/one-time Alice Coltrane protegée Surya Botofasina and producer Carlos Niño. He's also announced some shows in support of the record at venues like New York's Blue Note Jazz Club. With Switzerland's Montreaux Jazz Festival launching a satellite festival in Miami March 1-3, the organizers would be wise to take advantage and invite the band down. John Batiste and Daryl Hall are nice and all, but the youth need some André in their lives.

Ultra Music Festival: Justice

Ultra is still adding acts to its 2024 edition taking place in Bayfront Park March 22-24, and if there's any act demanding to be booked for the EDM festival, it's Justice. The duo of Gaspard Augé and Xavier de Rosnay is preparing to release Hyperdrama, its first album in eight years, and has already announced a set at Coachella. As many Miami music elder statesmen know, they're not the first mega-popular French house act to go bicoastal. Whether or not the new record proves to be Justice's high-gloss Random Access Memories or a return to its nasty electro-house roots (or both!), one thing is clear: The pair should play Ultra. After years of acquiescing to spectacle EDM, Miami's marquee dance music festival — and one of its only independent promos — needs to remind everyone what it's capable of or risk irrelevance. Booking Justice is a way to ensure that.

Get Lost: Four Tet

How did the sweetest bloke in electronic music turn into an epic EDM badman? Kieran Hebden started out making folktronica as Four Tet nearly two decades ago, slowly turning his focus toward classy club music, then to big-room house anthems with just a bit of cheekiness. (Remember when Eric Prydz played his "Opus" remix in Ibiza, leaving everyone waiting ages for the drop?) That sense of fun endeared him to multiple generations of clubbers, especially the new kids, who view him as a kind of friendly scene grandpa who can still push out a banger. Last year's series of world-conquering back-to-back-to-back sets with Skrillex and Fred Again.., going from Times Square to Madison Square Garden, and closing out Coachella hoisted him into the stratosphere. Such an esteemed DJ would be ideally suited to play Get Lost, Miami Music Week's biggest 24-hour party, which is expected to return to Factory Town in March. No one's better suited to playing it and actually putting on an interesting show than him. Maybe throw Floating Points in there for good measure.

Afro Nation Miami: Amaarae

Last year, AfroNation Miami staked its claim as one of Miami's most exciting new festivals with a lineup that included stars like Burna Boy and Asake along with amapiano talents like Major League DJz. Amaarae doesn't fall into either of these categories, but the rising Ghanaian-American singer should absolutely play the next edition of the festival. Her 2023 album, Fountain Baby, was one of the most exciting pop records of the year, blending '90s R&B with contemporary Afro-pop sounds culled from the streets of Accra. Festivalgoers would be lucky to see her on stage at LoanDepot Park, should Afro Nation confirm its return.

Rolling Loud: RXK Nephew

Mainstream hip-hop is hitting a bit of a rough patch. The biggest rappers are stagnating creatively, and the ones that should be rising to the top are canceling tours and getting in legal trouble. Meanwhile, a whole generation of rising talents in places like Milwaukee and upstate New York are pushing the culture forward, but it might be a little too chaotic for the radio. RXK Nephew is a part of this set. Hailing from Rochester, New York, he's been called "America's weirdest rapper," and rest assured, that's a term of endearment. On wild tracks like the ten-minute epic "American Tterroristt," he distills the weirdness of America into poetic balladry about religion, national politics, hood politics, and conspiracy theories that are also heart-stoppingly funny. (Who the fuck is Christopher Columbus?/If he would've came to my block/Talkin' 'bout he discovered my trap/His ass would've probably got shot.") Neph is the kind of artist that one finds low on Rolling Loud's bill, which will be announced ahead of its return to Hard Rock Stadium this summer, and he's likely to be twice as entertaining as someone like, say, Kanye West. By the way, he's got an incredible Kanye diss track.

III Points: Kelela

Any number of artists could play Miami's most eclectic festival, which remains a crucial conduit for locals to see acts never before seen in the city despite the creep of corporate-friendly acts (see: John Summit) on its lineups. Some acts that belong on the festival's lineup include up-and-coming Chicago indie-pop guy Sen Morimoto, legendary songstress Anohni, and London rockers Bar Italia. And, at the risk of sounding cliché, when will Aphex Twin happen? But ultimately, if there's one artist that needs to play III Points more than anyone else, it's Kelela. Coming off an epic year in which her album Raven synthesized the contemporary club sounds of today into a peerless pop record, like an alt-R&B answer to Beyoncé's Renaissance, the Ethiopian-American singer is a perfect fit to headline the festival, following in the recent tradition of booking alt-pop divas like Caroline Polachek and Rosalía. The festival has yet to confirm dates for 2024, but it's likely to return to Mana Wynwood in October.

Country Bay: Morgan Wallen

This new festival at Miami Marine Stadium debuted at a pretty opportune moment for country music to cross over into the mainstream, bringing up-and-coming stars like Thomas Rhett and Lainey Wilson to play by the bay. What they need this year, however, is a star, and there's no bigger star in the Nashville sky like Morgan Wallen. The former Voice contestant caught fire last year thanks to the confessional, intimate songwriting on One Thing at a Time, anchored by the mega-hit single "Last Night," which spent a record-breaking 16 weeks atop the Billboard Hot 100. If country music wants to stick around in Miami, Wallen's going to be the guy to stake it in place for good. Country Bay has yet to announce its 2024 edition.

Boiler Room: Any New-Wave Baile Funk Artist

Down in Brazil, a musical revolution is happening in the favelas. Baile funk, the wide-spanning umbrella genre that goes back to the Miami bass-influenced '90s, is being transformed by a new generation of forward-thinking DJs, producers, and vocalists. There are many different tendencies, from the wild, viral DDJ-mashing of DJ Ramon Sucesso's "beat bolha" to the dark, subterranean sound of DJ K and his Bruxaria Sound label. There's the brutal funk ostentação of MC Lan and DJ Arana and the spooky, soulful vocals of Triz. This music is abrasive, bass-heavy, and totally insane, and in a way, it hearkens back to the anarchic early days of the EDM boom when Skrillex's "Scary Monsters and Nice Sprites" converted legions to the dance. With the global dance music platform Boiler Room announcing its return to Miami on May 17 as part of a world tour, introducing at least one of these artists to our multivaried, mutating club scene would be wise.