A Renegade Performance by Danish Rapper KIDD at Roskilde Festival Attracted Thousands

Roskilde is Denmark’s longest annual multi-day event, spanning over a week of music, camping, and art. This year’s event took place June 29-July 2, featuring a diverse lineup including Fred Again..., Pinkpanthress, Post Malone, Dua Lipa, TLC, and Robert Plant. 

The festival campgrounds were also treated to a renegade performance from eclectic Danish wordsmith KIDD. The rapper shared news of this special surprise set on July 2. 

The enigmatic artist began his career over a decade ago—often disappearing for lengths of time and sporadically returning to release eagerly-anticipated singles.

“Kidd posted on Instagram that he would play at the festival at some time, at an unknown place. Later he tagged the place on Google Maps in his story and wrote ‘6pm.’ Roughly half an hour late, he showed up at 6.30pm to a crowd near the thousands,” shared Roskilde Festival attendee Casper Riboe—an iOS developer based in Copenhagen, Denmark.

“He turned the Danish rap genre upside down and had it shift in a new direction. He has been an artist that basically everybody knows and is always hyped, hence what happened at the festival,” explained Riboe.

Riboe, whose hobbies include photography and tinkering with new technologies, initially planned to take aerial shots of the largest campsite before the festival officially wrapped up. 

“My friends built this place called Camp Good Neighbor, with a huge speaker setup. Usually it can play at any size audience but this was definitely its limit, as it didn’t reach far enough being positioned as low as it was,” he said.

“I wasn’t officially part of the camp, so I was just on the terrace, hanging out. The plan for me was to smuggle my drone in and get a shot of the largest stage in the evening, recalled Riboe. 

After being approached by police, he began to have second thoughts about his plan.

“It made perfect sense to stay and get some shots with the drone, but after talking to the police I decided to head home without fulfilling my initial plans.”

Then, before the developer almost left the campsite, he was told by a friend that KIDD would be arriving shortly to perform.

According to Riboe, KIDD didn’t have a ticket. “He jumped the fence, ran for his life, and arrived at this crowd that had waited for 40 minutes.”

“The campsite is in a section called “Dream City” in the camping area,” explained Riboe. “It has its own entry on Google Maps, known as ‘Techno Borgen’ meaning The Techno Castle. The camp itself is called Camp Go’ Nabo translating literally to ‘Camp Good Neighbour.’ It’s been part of Dream City since it began somewhere around 5-7 years ago.”

Thousands of Roskilde attendees and fans of the artist clamored around the vibrant, portable stage at the campsite to enjoy an exclusive popup performance by the artist as Riboe tried to document the event as best he could with his drone from the terrace.

“He performed for 15, maybe 20 minutes. The head of security also showed up, but it was the police who shut it down,” explained Riboe. “The festival was somewhat okay with it. They were just there to make sure nothing went wrong and if so, end it. But everything was absolutely fine and people had a blast!”

Riboe, who has frequented Roskilde four times, said witnessing the performance was one of the most memorable moments he’s had at the festival yet.