Big Sean, Wale to headline Art Attack XXXI

A poster for SEE’s annual concert, featuring Wale. 

Hip-hop artists Big Sean and Wale are headlining SEE’s annual Art Attack concert in May, the group announced Thursday.

The two artists are the first co-headliners for the spring concert since Weezer and Ben Folds in 2010, said Shadia Weeks, Student Entertainment Events public relations director. The concert is May 2 in Byrd Stadium, and tickets will be $10 for students.

For this year’s headliner, SEE was looking for artists relevant to current music, Weeks said, adding she thinks Big Sean and Wale will “reach a broad audience.”

“We wanted to make sure that it was someone who was relevant, someone who has songs playing now that people were listening to,” she said.

Big Sean grew with Kanye West as his mentor. After earning Grammy nominations in 2013 as a featured artist on West’s song “Mercy”, Big Sean released his second album, Hall of Fame, in August with songs including “Beware” featuring Lil Wayne and Jhené Aiko as well as “Guap.”

Wale, a Washington native, released his debut album, Attention Deficit, in 2009, followed by Ambition in 2011 and The Gifted in June with songs “Bad” and “LoveHate Thing” featuring Sam Dew.

Big Sean and Wale will follow MGMT’s performance as the 2013 Art Attack headliner. Though some on the campus have come to expect the Art Attack concert to alternate between rock and hip-hop artists each year, SEE has no rule requiring the back-and-forth, Weeks said.

SEE officially broke the news Thursday afternoon through social media. It tweeted announcing the headliners at 4:40 p.m. and posted a link to the Facebook event, which has more than 2,000 people listed as “going” as of Thursday evening.

SEE had what Weeks called a “soft release” of the news Thursday at noon to heighten anticipation. SEE asked students to find SEE’s directors, who were handing out posters announcing the event — one with Big Sean’s face on it, one with Wale’s. Weeks said students then knew one of the artists was coming but not both at the same time.

“It’s going to be a fun show,” Weeks said.