The Wonderfront Music & Arts Festival is shifting from fall to spring this year to make the most of its beautiful surroundings on the San Diego waterfront.
Wonderfront, which previously took place in November of 2019 and 2022, will return for its third year this May. Once again, the festival grounds cover Embarcadero Marina Park North, Ruocco Park and Seaport Village. Friday, May 10’s opening night includes rising Atlanta rapper JID and the acclaimed dancer producer KAYTRANADA. Saturday, May 11’s headliners are alternative rock veterans Weezer and new school alt-pop singer-songwriter Dominic Fike. The festival’s final night on Sunday, May 12 will feature performances by the iconic genre-bending polymath Beck and hip-hop’s greatest live band, The Roots.
With over 80 acts in three days, from native Southern California bands to international hitmakers, it may be hard to decide exactly how to spend your time at the festival. Here are the top five artists beyond the headliners that you shouldn’t miss at Wonderfront 2024.
Photo Credit: Paras Griffin
T-Pain
After releasing his aptly titled 2005 debut Rappa Ternt Sanga, T-Pain went on a legendary run, rapping and/or singing on over a dozen top 10 pop hits that helped shift the sound of popular music. With his innovative approach to the Auto-Tune vocal effect, pitch correcting his voice to such extreme levels that it gave his songs an eerie robotic sheen, the Florida R&B phenom guested on hits by everyone from Lil Wayne and Chris Brown to Jamie Foxx and Flo Rida. In recent years, T-Pain has converted skeptics with dynamic live performances that prove that he can belt out a melody without the aid of AutoTune, going viral with his appearances on NPR’s Tiny Desk Concert, The Masked Singer, and the 2023 Soul Train Awards.
Photo Credit: SOPA Images
Alice Phoebe Lou
Alice Matthew grew up in South Africa, summered in Paris, and cut her teeth as a performer by singing and playing guitar with a battery-powered amp on railway station platforms in Berlin. Better known as Alice Phoebe Lou, the singer-songwriter honed her globetrotting experiences into a unique catalog that exists in its own creative universe, self-releasing all five of her albums even after attracting the interest of major labels. Her breakout song, 2020’s “Witches,” is an ethereal indie pop gem, but the chorus alludes to E-40’s west coast rap classic “Captain Save a Hoe.”
Photo Credit: Rick Kern
Mt. Joy
Mt. Joy began in 2016 when Matt Quinn and Sam Cooper, friends from high school in Philadelphia, started making music together again after both had moved to Los Angeles. Over the next couple years, Mt. Joy developed from a bedroom recording project to a 5-piece touring band that topped the Adult Alternative charts with the gold single “Silver Lining.” By the time the band recorded 2021’s Live at Red Rocks at the iconic Colorado venue, Mt. Joy had figured out how to turn the folky intimacy of their studio albums into communal singalongs, and made the fan favorite “Astrovan” into a rousing medley with the Funkadelic classic “Can You Get to That.”
Photo Credit: Jack Taylor
BadBadNotGood
Hip-hop producers have been sampling jazz records for decades, but the Toronto trio BadBadNotGood are fusing the two genres together in new, exciting ways. Since 2010, founding rhythm section Chester Hansen and Alexander Sowinski have risen to fame covering trap hits by Gucci Mane and Waka Flocka Flame with live instrumentation, and backed Ghostface Killah on the acclaimed 2015 album Sour Soul. Whether remixing the punk band Turnstile, winning Grammys for their work with Kendrick Lamar and Thundercat, or touring with an expanded 6-piece lineup, BadBadNotGood continue to push the envelope on sonic experimentation while also expertly recreating vinyl era grooves.
Photo Credit: Axelle/Bauer-Griffin
Natasha Bedingfield
Sassy songs like “Single” and “I Wanna Have Your Babies” turned the West Sussex singer Natasha Bedingfield into one of the UK’s biggest pop stars in the mid-2000s. And the bright, optimistic hooks of “These Words” and “Pocketful of Sunshine” made her one of the few Brits of the era that crossed over big in America. Bedingfield hasn’t released a new album since 2019, but her catalog of hits somehow seems even more inescapable now than ever before. Her signature song, 2004’s “Unwritten,” experienced a resurgence in recent months, trending on TikTok after appearing in the 2023 box office hits Anyone but You and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem.
