Seven artists we're looking forward to seeing at Bonnaroo this year

Temperatures are rising and the sun is shining a bit brighter. Summer’s finally here—and that means one thing to music fans. It’s festival season!

Oxfam has a long history of partnering with the biggest and best music festivals around the world. We’ve connected with music fans at Glastonbury in England, Pink Pop in Holland, Lollapalooza in Berlin and Chicago, and Primavera Sound in Spain, to sign petitions, and amplify our work. And now Bonnaroo Music & Arts Festival in Manchester, Tenn, is upon us, signaling the kick-off of our summer music outreach season.

This year at Bonnaroo we’ve got big plans, including leading a course at the festival’s Academy called “Write On! Activist Letter Writing Made Easy;” serving delicious farm-to-table BonnaROOTS community dinners at sunset along with our partner Eat for Equity, with proceeds benefiting our work; and running a cornhole competition with our ally National Resource Defense Council. (The winner gets to play a round of cornhole with festival artists The National and Bishop Briggs!)

And like you, we’re there to be inspired by some of the greatest artists of our time. Here’s a list of seven Bonnaroo artists we can’t wait to see this year.

Childish Gambino

Will this be one of Donald Glover’s final big concerts as Gambino, as he’s been hinting? We hope not, because as socially conscious music artists go, there are few performers as compelling.

Courtney Barnett

We’ve been in love with Barnett’s playful and emotional way with lyrics since she burst onto the scene, and she’s such an under-rated groovy guitarist. She’s so cool.

Kasey Musgraves

Part of the “New Nashville” that is kicking down the doors of conservatism in the country music industry, Kasey’s songs mean so much to so many. Surely she’ll play a slew of songs from her wonderful “Golden Hour” album here.

The National

These guys are longtime Oxfam supporters (they’ve even collaborated with us on a coloring book page for our youngest supporters!), and this will be a great chance for us to hear songs from their new album “I Am Easy To Find,” which many critics are calling their best set yet.

K.Flay

As we all wait for the new album “Solutions,” this set will hopefully give us all a chance to hear some new songs for the first time. Bonus: We’ll be serving candied sweet potatoes at our dinners, based on one of her recipes.

Bishop Briggs

There are few young performers who can mix pop, indie-rock, and soul as seamlessly as Bishop Briggs. Her set is a rollercoaster of emotion, and it’ll be fun to see how all those feelings translate to a giant farm field in the middle of Tennessee.

Solange

Fans were disappointed that her highly-touted performance at Coachella was cancelled this year due to production delays, but it looks like all systems are go for her Bonnaroo set. Her new album “When I Get Home” is so good, this performance seems likely to go down well in Bonnaroo history.

Can’t make it to Bonnaroo, but still want to jam with us? Hit play on this Spotify playlist of tracks from some of our favorite Bonnaroo artists from this year.

Over the years we have collected tens of thousands of petition signatures at Bonnaroo, and we love talking to folks who come back to our booth every year to report all the actions they’ve taken with us since the previous year’s “Roo.” Find out how you can take action, like thousands of other music fans will be doing over summer.