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Music

Hull, of All Places, Will Host Europe's Biggest Free Festival in 2017

Stormzy, Kings of Leon, and actual Little Mix have been announced for Radio 1’s Big Weekend, which will take place in the UK's official "City of Culture" 2017
Daisy Jones
London, GB

Throughout history, a few musical minds have helped cultivate cities of greatness; cultural behemoths that stand as examples of the sheer humbling creativity of humankind. Chicago gave us house, Kingston blessed us with dancehall, the Bronx invented hip-hop and London helped shape punk as we know it.

And then there is Hull.

Hull, which gave us boundary-pushing icons such as The Paddingtons, Everything But the Girl and Callum Scott from well known television talent show Britain's Got Talent, AKA the guy who released that cover of Robyn's "Dancing on My Own" which was really incredible and powerful and gives me goosebumps just thinking about it and is now up for a Brit award next month.

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Because of Hull's unparalleled cultural history, this year finally saw the city crowned as the country's "leading city of culture", causing our Prime Minister, Theresa May, to remark that she is really impressed (cool!). If that wasn't enough, though, the city will also host Radio 1's The Big Weekend, which is Europe's largest free festival, and will coincide with Hull's "City of Culture" celebrations. This is it: Hull's time to shine. So far, grime's reigning prince Stormzy, Kings of Leon and actual living breathing Little Mix have been announced to play the festival…in Hull (did I mention it was in Hull?). I don't know about you lot, but I know what I'll be doing on the weekend of 27 and 28 May – GETTING MEGA FUCKED UP IN HULL!

"We are thrilled that BBC Radio 1's Big Weekend is coming to Hull for 2017," said Martin Green, who works as director for Hull UK City of Culture 2017. "Bringing this major national event with some of the biggest names in the music industry is a massive coup for the city and confirms its growing international profile as THE place to be." THE place to be, everyone.

Ben Cooper, who works as Radio 1 Controller said: "Listen to Radio 1, and search on your phone, to find out how you could join the young people of Hull enjoying the biggest pop stars, playing the best new music, from the UK and around the world." So yeah, there's a sentence that definitely makes sense. Sign me up, now! People were so keen on the announcement that all the traffic to Hull UK City of Culture 2017's website briefly crashed on Monday morning, leading to lots of triple-exclamation-mark Facebook comments on the campaign's page.

Click here for more info from the BBC, and listen to Stormzy's "Shut Up" below to get you proper pumped up for Hull.

(Lead image via YouTube)