Niles Murphy wasn’t about to let a nor’easter ruin a good outfit. To cross the waterlogged outfield at Regency Furniture Stadium, Murphy paired a Travis Scott Cactus Jack x Nike windbreaker with Balenciaga Crocs boots, ready for the elements without compromising the look.
“I was pulling up rain or shine, so I wasn’t about to let the weather derail the fit,” Murphy said. “Either way, it was always gonna be a movie.”
Murphy was among the dedicated attendees who stuck it out at Camp Souled Out Dates (Camp SOD), which expanded into a two-day music festival at the Waldorf stadium on Sept. 26-27, its most ambitious undertaking to date.
Staging a large outdoor production in late September brought challenges from the start. A nor’easter drenched the region that weekend, the same storm system that forced major East Coast cancellations, including the Oceans Calling Festival in Ocean City, Maryland. Organizers did not release turnout figures for the event to local media, but the weather visibly thinned the crowd at the stadium. Mud and scheduling delays created some friction, yet fans persisted through the saturated grounds.
Camp SOD wasn’t the only major DMV event this season forced to contend with Mother Nature. Over Labor Day weekend at Afro Plus Fest in Landover, a severe storm brought wind gusts exceeding 100 mph and caused power outages affecting more than 45,000 residents. After his set, headliner Davido publicly praised founder Michael Awosanya, calling him a “warrior” for pushing through the conditions to keep the show going for the community it serves.
Asked about facing a similar setback, Camp SOD CEO and co-founder Keith Haynie pointed to that moment. “It’s like what Davido said to Michael, we have to keep going because there will always be tomorrow.”
That persistence has been part of SOD from the start. When Haynie and co-founder Fahn Darkor launched Souled Out Dates (SOD) in 2022 with an impromptu Drake-themed party, few could have anticipated where it would go. Since then, the pair has grown SOD from a single D.C. nightlife gathering into an international live-experiences brand. Per company figures, SOD has generated more than $5.6 million in ticket sales and drawn nearly 250,000 attendees to date — metrics the founders reference as proof of rapid scaling.
At its core, Camp SOD runs on “adult nostalgia, live entertainment, community, and of course, fun,” said Haynie, who set out to bring the energy of childhood sleepaway camp to a grown-up audience. Darkor saw the stadium itself as central to that vision, saying he hoped its old-school lodge feel would keep attendees coming back.
Darkor said his background in lifestyle promotion helped shape SOD’s identity around its core audience. According to internal estimates, roughly 65% of attendees are Black women in their mid-20s who are immersed in fashion and internet culture — a crowd that turned the rainy day into a fit check.
Day 1 played out under a steady pour, led by headliner PARTYNEXTDOOR, whose set brought together fans who grew up alongside his moody, ambient R&B catalog and newer listeners discovering his foundational sound for the first time. Sets from Cash Cobain, G Herbo and rising West Coast artist Allyn rounded out opening night with a mix of national star power and emerging talent.
Day 2 featured DaBaby and Yung Miami alongside local DMV acts, including Prince George’s County rapper Premo Rice and Maryland-raised singer Sarina. Riding the wave of her viral hit “Spend Dat,” Yung Miami delivered an unfiltered set that underscored her growing place in hip-hop and landed especially hard with the women in the audience.
Backstage, in an interview with 7News, Yung Miami reflected on her recent solo success and on pushing past public doubt. “To have a hit song coming off of a hate train, people doubting you, it just feels so good…it just lets me know what’s for me is for me.”
Don Toliver capped the lineup with the first live performance of his new collaboration with Drake, an R&B interpolation of Ella Langley’s country hit “Choosin’ Texas.” The timing gave the set extra weight: Drake had premiered the track just 12 days earlier during his Sept. 15 Fear of Missing Out (FOMO) livestream, and it wasn’t released until Oct. 2, as “Solar Eclipse” on the expanded edition of his album HABIBTI (FOMO).
For a brand that started as a Drake homage in 2022, closing its first stadium weekend with a live premiere tied to the Toronto star brought the story full circle.
Haynie told The Informer his ultimate “goal is to build the largest hip-hop festival in the world.” If SOD gets there, this rain-soaked weekend in Waldorf will have been an early marker of the D.C.-born company’s rise.
Murphy, for one, is already counting on a return trip.
“Like I said, it was a movie. Action-packed, killer soundtrack,” he said. “For the sequel, I just need the sun to make a cameo.”
