IAM takes over the Vélodrome stadium in Marseille for a concert event in June 2025

IAM joins the list of city rappers who have transformed the Vélodrome into a concert stage, such as SCH, who performed in July 2023 in front of 53,400 fans and Jul, who performed there in 2022 and has just announced a new concert in May 2025.

“A big dream in a big box” for IAM: the Marseille rap gladiators will crowd for an event concert on June 28, 2025 an arena of their size, the Vélodrome stadium, a first in their career.

And don’t tell them that this poster represents the meeting of two monuments of the Marseille city. “Monument, it’s a bit frozen, it’s not us…”smiles Shurik’n, ​​met by AFP alongside the other pillars, Akhenaton and Kheops, before a concert at L’Olympia in Paris at the beginning of March.

“It’s exhilarating” breathes the other MC and leader Akhenaton. “What did we say? Ah yes, a big dream in a big box”, laughs Kheops, DJ. “We are regularly asked – when are you doing the Vélodrome? – whether it comes from fans from Marseille or elsewhere,” develops Akhenaten. “We postponed it many times, hesitated to do it, now it’s the right timing, it makes sense,” he continues. “For us, it’s a necessary step” supports Shurik’n. An obvious fact, with a first album called “…From the planet Mars” (1991), which they make sound like the “planet Marseille”.

“A communion”

“The Vélodrome is a challenge but it’s good, we like it, we’re not the good type, we’ll have two hours, set the alarm”, laughs Shurik’n.

“We always entered the stage with pressure, in small venues, we go at it with the bayonet, the arena side, it is always present with us”, Akhenaten agrees. Their latest album, released at the beginning of February, HH History (for Hip-Hop History), is full of titles where fifty-year-olds unleash their competitive spirit. Like the song “The second is the first of the losers.”

For the epic OM football stadium, the group will think of its show in “terms of images, paintings, it’s like the work of a director” Shurik’n advances. “We will want to do everything, even cloning, Jean-Luc Mélenchon did it well, why not us?” lance, schoolboy, Akhenaton, in reference to the holograms used for his meetings by the leader of LFI during the campaign of the last presidential election.

“In the stadium, it has to be a celebration and a communion” he continues more seriously. We understand between the lines that the group will line up its biggest hits without blinking, like “I dance the mia”, which he rarely does. At the Olympia, IAM resounded “Fire”, a hit that had been left out of his set list for a long time. With Kheops, we should expect the orthodoxy of hip-hop pioneers: a DJ who doesn’t just throw the loops but “scratch” still on his decks.

When asked about his memories of the Vélodrome, he turns to Akhenaton to talk about their adolescence as fans of the club in this stadium. “We arrived at 3 p.m., for a match at 8 p.m., to be well placed and we had the sun in our faces all afternoon (laughs).”