Earlier this week, news broke that this year would be the last year Philadelphia's Ben Franklin Parkway hosted Jay-Z's Made In America festival. Ben Franklin Parkway has hosted the festival since its inception in 2012. Jay-Z's stated his disappointment in the Philly mayor for his decision for not only evicting the festival, but not taking into consideration that the festival also employs many locals. While Jay-Z and Roc Nation have intentions of keeping the festival in Philly, in the case that doesn't work out, they have other opportunities to host it elsewhere.
According to the Associated Press, Alderman Khalif Rainey wrote a letter to Jay-Z and Roc Nation inviting them to host Made In America festival in Milwaukee after the Philadephia Mayor evicted them. In his plea to bring the fest to his city, he said that Milwaukee is known as a city of music festivals since they host dozens of events each year The letter was signed on Thursday by four of Rainey's Common Council colleagues.
The Mayor of Philly recently responded to Jay-Z's criticism in the op-ed he wrote for the Philadelphia Inquirer after Made In America's eviction news broke out.
"The City of Philadelphia supports the Made in America festival and is greatly appreciative of all that it has done for Philadelphia." He said in a statement to Billboard, "We hope to be able to resolve what has been an unfortunate misunderstanding. We are working with Roc Nation and Live Nation to resolve this issue and we are committed to continuing our partnership with the Made in America festival.”
It's unsure how they could resolve this issue but we're hoping this all works out at the end.