Phantogram, Big Boi Headline Conquest


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Big Boi and Phantogram will be the headliners of USC’s annual Conquest festival tonight, held to rally students before the UCLA rivalry football game this upcoming Saturday.

Conquest!: The Ultimate Trojan Experience is a yearly event hosted by USC Concerts Committee, Office of Campus Activities, Undergraduate Student Government Program Board and Trojan Pride. It will be held on McCarthy Quad and give students the opportunity to come together and show their Trojan pride. Conquest will celebrate accomplishments in USC athletics and academics.

This is the 11th annual Conquest rally.

“The purpose [of the event] is to celebrate and capture the incredible pride on display during Troy Week and bring the student body together to rally around the team and school before the cross-town rivalry game,” said Abigail Harris, the assistant director of Concerts Committee.

The event will open with a food truck fair and sponsor booths at 5 p.m. Food trucks at the event will include Kogi, The Lime Truck, Waffles de Liege, Coolhaus, The Grilled Cheese Truck and The Boba Truck.

There will be a rally at 7 p.m. with appearances from USC sports teams and coaches, the Trojan Marching Band and the USC Song Girls. USC performance groups scheduled to perform are the hip-hop dance crew C3, a capella groups Troy Tones and Underscore and Competition Cheer.

There will also be returning traditions such as the Ferris wheel that lights up cardinal and gold, a Bruin bonfire, a fireworks show and a concert.

This year’s headliners have collaborated before.

Big Boi is a six-time GRAMMY Award winner and has sold more than 25 million albums worldwide as half of the musical group OutKast. Outside of OutKast, he is also a successful songwriter and record producer.

The other headliner, electronic rock duo Phantogram, made SPIN’s list of the 50 Best Albums of 2014, has played at many major American music festivals, and has had songs featured in movies such as The Hunger Games: Catching Fire and TV shows such as Skins, Teen Wolf and Shameless. The band has previously performed with Big Boi on three songs from his second studio album.

“We decided on [this] lineup because we wanted to do something truly special and thought bringing Big Boi and Phantogram was the perfect way to achieve that goal, as they’re both highly acclaimed performers, bring very different audiences together and are working on a joint EP,” Harris said.

Previous Conquest! concert headliners have included Jason Derulo, Childish Gambino and Cobra Starship.

Typically around 5,000 students attend throughout the course of the night, according to Concerts Committee.

Conquest! is a closed show for USC students, alumni and community members. USC students must show their USC IDs, and guests must show proper government-issued ID to enter McCarthy Quad.