2012 Grammy nominee J. Cole will perform in the fieldhouse on May 4, as the main act for the spring concert.
The Student Activities Board is expecting to fill the fieldhouse with J. Cole and opening act hip- hop artist Big K.R.I.T., according to the announcement.
The announcement came Wednesday night at the end of the Black Jew Dialogues event in the main lounge.
According to Mary Sarkissian, SAB concert committee co-chair, the planning process for the concert began last semester,
"Most agencies do not allow booking until six months prior to the event because their asking price may increase," Sarkissian said.
Keeping the Catholic mission in mind was an "imperative" part of the artist search, according to Sarkissian.
"Fortunately, our performer's musical content is very empowering," Sarkissian said. "As a college graduate, many of his songs do promote education. When speaking to his agents and doing research, we were pleased to learn that he had performed at other Catholic universities."
Sarkissian said that SAB did not ask for songs to be changed to stay in line with the Catholic mission, but that the set list will "not include any songs with content that is not aligned with the Catholic Mission."
When the SAB Student Activities fee was proposed last year, concerts were the top event requested, according to Assistant Dean of Students for Student Activities Mariel Pagan.
"Based on surveys and focus groups that have been done in the past two years, we know that concerts are the number one type of event that students want to have brought to SHU," Pagan said.
According to Pagan, J. Cole was the first choice of the concert committee but Mac Miller, Tyga, Wale and Big Sean were all considered.
Student surveys played a role in the choice of the genre and performer, according to Sarkissian.
"Our first rounds of surveying included picking a specific genre, and after we received our results we sent out another survey narrowing the choices," Sarkissian said. "The survey choices were between hip-hop and rock, which were the highest results in our first survey. The result of that survey, hip-hop, was what we used to pick our performer."
Whether or not students will be charged to attend the event and whether non-Seton Hall students will be able to go is still unknown.
"The fee for the concert is to be determined," Sarkissian said.
The security presence at the event is also still in the planning stages, according to Pagan.
"We are working with Public Safety to develop a security plan," Pagan said. "We expect the security team for the event to include Seton Hall Public Safety, Securitas Staff, SOPD officers and other outside security assistance if necessary."
According to Pagan, they will likely assess and evaluate the success of this upcoming concert before making a decision about hosting another.
Nicholas Parco can be reached at nicholas.parco@student.shu.edu.
Ashley Duvall can be reached at ashley,duvall@student.shu.edu
