NORMAN, Okla. — Another Norman Music Festival has come and gone, bringing much of the larger Oklahoma music scene together for a weekend and heralding the late spring season in all its wet and fickle difficulty.
Despite a not-insignificant dip in funding, guarded expectations from guests and performers left disappointed by last year’s weather cancellations, and multiple rounds of outright torrential morning rain, NMF 2025 – the 15th installment in 17 years – went off with only minor hitches this past weekend.
And even after all these years, this one felt particularly special.
Maybe that’s because the collective energies across the scene are more restless and communal than ever, spurred by political anger and social unrest. Maybe the artists are all hitting their strides and focusing their visions. Maybe crowds and creatives were just hungry for a full, solid NMF after last year’s interruption.
Or maybe it just felt that way to me because I’m more engaged with the scene now than ever before, thanks primarily to this very column.
Whatever the reason, NMF 2025 felt like an encapsulation of the current OKC Metro music community, appropriately championing the local legends while elevating the acts and sounds that are poised to take over.
Locals lead
The 2025 lineup saw a welcome majority of locally oriented, Oklahoman acts high up on the bill on every single stage through the fest.
While top billing for the entire weekend went to out-of-towners La Luz and Being Dead, Oklahomans formed the bulk of the high-profile slots across the stages, with OK-based acts like Sierra Spirit, The Ivy, Casii Stephan, and, of course Jabee all even headlining and closing out stages during the weekend.
And joining Jabee in representing OKC on the festival’s biggest stages were insatiably buzzworthy locals like stepmom, Mad Honey, LABRYS, Bee and The Hive, Sisteria, Josh Sallee, Original Flow, regular NMF veterans Rainbows are Free, and more.
NMF has seen persistent criticism in past years for seemingly putting more effort into out-of-town and international bookings than into elevating the state’s own homegrown scene, but it seems unlikely that anyone could make that argument this year.
Hip-hop heroes
2025 showcased rap at NMF in a bigger, bolder, and better way than I’ve ever seen, even dedicating the entire Saturday lineup on the West Stage to hip-hop and R&B.
But the style wasn’t just siloed in that one end of the festival.
The massive Main Stage was christened on Friday evening by OK rapper Chip Mantooth, S. Reidy saw two major sets, including his own curated showcase of hip-hop newcomers, and Sativa Prophets stalwart Caj delivered easily one of the weekend’s most explosive, star-making sets on the Alley Stage Friday night.
And speaking of Sativa Prophets, it’s difficult to think of another single moment of hip-hop at NMF 2025 that will stand up to legend more than their “unofficial” spot inside Main Street’s Prohibition Lounge late Saturday night with backing from Josh Sallee.
Billed as their final ever NMF performance before their recently announced imminent disbanding, the Prophets blew the walls off the small bar, with the packed crowd spilling out onto the street to catch a glimpse of the sweat-soaked energy.
And then of course, there’s the untouchable Jabee Williams – OKC’s reigning rap bannerman – who closed out the West Stage on the final night by bringing along Detroit beat-making master Apollo Brown.
Brown performed a half-hour masterclass in beat production before Jabee took the stage to celebrate the scene, the sound, and the family that he’s helped to build in Oklahoma.
Pop-punk peak
If ever you needed proof that pop-punk and emo are back in a big way, NMF provided it this weekend.
Okie emo punks like Honor Choir, Limp Wizurdz, and the wave-making Cliffdiver all scored prime spots throughout the fest, and OKC’s own SUNFO even found themselves storming the Main Stage on Saturday evening beneath a massive backdrop of Kevin James’ goofy face.
Likewise, ska faithful like Fair Weather Enemies and NMF mainstays The Big News riffed out their own time-tested pop-punk sounds to bigger and hungrier crowds than ever.
If it’s true that pop culture often moves in roughly twenty-year cycles, then we’re definitely at the outset of a major resurgence for that 2005-style emo and pop-punk sound.
Production power
If one element truly stuck out from NMF this year, it was the level of production and consideration that our local acts brought to the stage.
It’s not out of the ordinary for the big, national-level headliners to put on a serious show, but this year, the highest-profile locals seemed to really embrace the potential of creating something uniquely memorable for the fest, making NMF more a moment of elevation than a simple victory lap.
Bee and The Hive made the most of their Main Stage status with a pitch-perfect slideshow backdrop from visual artist Sydney Moody that threw the stage back to Windows 95, complete with pixilated clip art and MS Paint to match their hypercolor, sax-infused bops.
Recent breakouts, stepmom brought their full Profitopia production to the NMF stage, not only flooding the street with pink lights and their glitched-out stage visuals of feminine deconstruction, but even introducing some brand new blockheaded capitalist characters for the very first time.
Glam-rocker The Muffled Siren even presented a mini rock opera on the Alley Stage, complete with costumed characters and a whole pseudo-narrative.
But one act stood supreme at NMF 2025 in terms of production, planning, choreography, and community participation, and that’s funk-focused cross-genre rap-rockers Original Flow and The Wavvez.
Already one of the most electrifying acts on the scene, Flow shocked the confused congregation at the West Stage Saturday night by appearing in the crowd and calling a challenge to a potential usurper on stage claiming to have assumed control of The Wavvez.
That would-be musical invader was in fact Alfonso Pule of breakdance collective The Groovement Community, who jumped off stage with his dancing cohorts and proceeded to do “battle” with Flow through the parted audience on the street all the way back to the stage with Flow never breaking his rhymes or rhythms.
It was an entirely unexpected moment of excitement for the crowd, but for Flow and the Groovement guys, it was the result of loads of work, planning, and secret-keeping leading up to the fest.
“I had so much fun putting it together!” Flow told me right after his set.
What’d I miss?
Of course, no one can catch it all, so there were also loads of buzzy moments that I sadly missed, but that had everyone talking all weekend.
S. Reidy found himself shirtless and hanging upside-down from the Opolis rafters during the Limp Wizurdz set Saturday night.
John Calvin Abney made a surprise appearance in the alley behind Guestroom Records on Friday ripping some guitar with punk pals Poolboy.
And in perhaps the most talked-about surprise of the fest, rapper War Mothershed proposed to his partner Cydney live on stage Saturday afternoon.
Can anything top that?
We’ll see, but it’s safe to say that NMF 2026 is going to have its work cut out for it.
You can find out about local music and performance happenings in the OKC metro weekly in this music column by Brett Fieldcamp. | Brought to you by True Sky Credit Union.
Brett Fieldcamp has been covering arts, entertainment, news, housing, and culture in Oklahoma for nearly 15 years, writing for several local and state publications. He’s also a musician and songwriter and holds a certification as Specialist of Spirits from The Society of Wine Educators.
