Zedd continues sports journey with Final Four performance, speaks on new album promised in 2024

Basketball is a game of rhythm and the NCAA is embracing the ever-growing crossover of sports and music.

The organization will partner with TNT Sports to again host the March Madness Music Festival, which this year will be at the men's Final Four in Phoenix. Latto, who also performed at the College Football Playoff, will be headlining the Super Saturday concert at the women's Final Four. The performers at the men's tournament were announced Wednesday morning with multiplatinum deejay Zedd serving as Friday's headliner at the AT&T Block Party, the opening day of the three-day festival.

Zedd, who is known for hits like "Clarity" and "Stay," has made a name for himself bending the rules of deejaying with his carefully curated performances that have matching visuals. He's been fairly quiet the past few years, performing at a Las Vegas residency and releasing some remixes, a single with Kehlani and reuniting with "The Middle" collaborator Maren Morris. But he's been working on his long-awaited album and getting more entrenched in the sports world.

"First of all, I think it’s one of the most exciting weekends of the year in general," the artist born Anton Zaslavski told USA TODAY Sports of being a part of the men's Final Four. "And secondly, in the last maybe three or so years, I’ve been expanding a little bit more into the world of sports. I myself have been getting a little bit more into health and fitness, but aside from that, we’ve just found there’s a lot of crossover between sports fans and music fans and there’s a bridge that is to be crossed and I’ve been kind of expanding more on that world and have been honestly just having a lot of fun playing to new fans and potential fans."

"Having music associated with sports is a natural fit," Andre Plaisance, TNT Sports' vice president of live events, said. "You know, anytime you're seeing with all these major events, music, and athletes together and sports is truly something that has people coming together more and more."

Besides his upcoming show, Zedd also performed at NBA All-Star weekend and the Formula 1 season opener, the Bahrain Grand Prix, where he presented three-time champion Max Verstappen with the pole position trophy.

"There’s always something really special about a big sports event," he said. "I feel like it goes beyond the actual event. This goes, obviously for basketball, but it goes for F1 or really any sport, I think there’s, just generally any city that that event ends up happening in turns into something different than just the event and different than just the shows around it. It’s just becoming, everybody’s mood changes, everybody gets more positive, besides the team that loses."

Read on to learn more about Zedd's upcoming album and the details for the men's Final Four music festival:

Zedd promises new 'deeply special' album in 2024

Zedd teased fans in his 2023 recap video that his new project is "the most genuine and deeply personal album I’ve ever made." It's been nearly a decade since he released his last LP, 2015's "True Colors." He was hesitant to label the industry, which is now thriving on singles and TikTok videos, "fast food music," but wanted to reclaim the thoughtfulness and intention that made him fall in love with music.

"I kind of miss the days where albums had meaning and they were able to give you deeper experience than just some random songs slapped together, which in my opinion a lot of albums these days are," he said. "There’s not really a story to it. And I’ve achieved more in my career than I ever dreamed of being able to achieve, so I just ask myself the question what the point would be to making an album if it wasn’t to do something that’s deeply special and honest and would give fans the experience that I kind of crave and can rarely find these days."

Both of Zedd's parents are musicians and he found a love for the artform at a young age when he learned to play piano. Before he rose to superstardom, he was the drummer for German metalcore band Dioramic. He previously credited Justice's "Cross" album as the catalyst for getting him into electronic music, the genre where he's won a Grammy, notched four top 10 hits on the Billboard Hot 100 and toured the world.

Zedd previously hinted that a full-length project was coming in 2020. He said that he got to a point where he was "halfway done" with that album and scrapped all but one song from it. The new project is one of "rediscovery" and has many full circle moments in Zedd's journey, including reinterpreting classical pieces he learned as a kid and working with a band whose song he covered in his first concert.

"Pretty much started from scratch and worked with artists that have inspired me to be who I am today," he said, "worked with artists without those I would never make the music I make, without those I would never have the musical education I was able to have. And really went deep into myself to find what it is that makes albums special that made me grow up, listen to them and wanna create stuff like it. So that’s the reason it’s been taking so long, but I’m very, very far along and can finally promise that it’s gonna come out this year."

When and where is the men's Final Four music festival?

The March Madness Music Festival will be held April 5 through 7 at Hance Park in Phoenix before the men's college basketball championship on April 8.

The Friday and Sunday concerts will also be live streamed at the NCAA website.

Zedd has done shows in Phoenix before, including at the Birds Nest at the 2018 Phoenix Open. The greater Phoenix area has also hosted the Super Bowl three times.

"It’s an amazing market and I don’t often play there, but generally, I think as a market, it’s very young, very electric," he said. "Every time I’ve ever played there, which by the way, it previously has also been connected to sports in the past, I just realized, it’s always been incredible. So I’m super excited to come back and yeah, build a set that hopefully everybody will remember and want to come back to and experience again."

Who is performing at the 2024 March Madness Music Festival?

Zedd is headlining Friday's concert lineup, the AT&T Block Party. Other artists on the bill include Reneé Rapp, who is known for her role as Regina George in this year's remake of the movie "Mean Girls," and singer/songwriter Remi Wolf.

Mark Wright, VP of Media and Sponsorships for AT&T, described the block party as "the adrenaline rush of the tournament meets the pulse of a live concert." He said the company looks for artists who "create memorable moments that resonate long after the last buzzer sounds" and that each was selected for specific reasons: Zedd for his "dynamic energy and stage presence," Rapp because her talents "resonate deeply" with key audiences, and Wolf for her "boundary-pushing creativity."

The Jonas Brothers will perform at Saturday's show, the Coke Studio Live. There will also be opportunities for fans to make their own music with the help of AI.

Before the championship game, Mumford & Sons, The Black Keys, Nathaniel Rateliff & The Night Sweat (who performed the national anthem for two games of the NBA Finals) and Leon Bridges will treat fans to a Sunday concert, the Capital One JamFest.

The Jonas Brothers, Mumford & Sons and The Black Keys will have their music featured on the broadcast of the tournament. Both Mumford & Sons and The Black Keys released singles in January, "Good People" and "Beautiful People (Stay High)" respectively.

Part of the process in selecting talent for the festival includes giving artists a platform to promote new music and fans an opportunity to hear it.

"It's a good opportunity for artists that have new music, so we definitely want to target and work with fans and musicians that are coming out with new music," Plaisance said, "and help them but also provide a good opportunity for fans to come out as well to hear that music."

How much are tickets for the men's Final Four music festival?

The March Madness Music Festival is free to fans.

The sponsors are intentional about having the event be free while also maintaining a high production level. Past performers have included Rihanna, Tim McGraw and Twenty One Pilots and organizers prides themselves on being competitive with top music events in the country.

"We're very fortunate to have three great partners with AT&T, Coca Cola, Capital One that gives us the opportunity to offer a free event like this," Plaisance said. "I mean, as you can see, we'll have major artists on each day that are nationally known. ... There's a lot of things the weekend of the Final Four that they will pay to go to, but this is one place that they can come to and have a good time and enjoy free music and just a great opportunity to be able to do that. ... Production value and overall experience is really important to us. So even though it's technically a free event, we want to make it feel like it's a major festival, which it is."

Zedd noted that he is appreciative of the event's accessibility. He's coming off a performance in front of an EDC Mexico crowd of 325,000 people, which he said on Instagram was "possibly the largest audience I’ve ever gotten to play for." He's played festivals where fans potentially paid hundreds of dollars to see their favorite dance music artists and this one is "extra special treat."

"I also really love the idea that it’s a show that’s free to the public, which is something that’s really rare these days," he said. "It doesn’t happen that often and I’m not a part of those very often. So I’m honored to be a part of something that hopefully will reach people that may not be fortunate enough to see it otherwise."

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Zedd to perform at men's Final Four, promises new album