AFROPUNK recently announced the lineup for their new event dedicated to Black women.
In a press release, the organizers of the AFROPUNK festival announced that artists from India. Arie, Tony Award-winning actor Sarah Jones, poet Aja Monet and musician Mereba will be attending their new “Black HERSTORY Live” event. Others on the lineup include choreographer Ebony Williams and musicians Danielle Ponder and Celisse.
As the event date gets closer, AFROPUNK announced that more acts will eventually be added to the lineup.
Recently announced, the “Black HERSTORY Live” event is created in partnership with the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts. Set to take place from Feb. 24 to Feb. 25, the mini-festival will have performances from musicians, poets, dancers, visual artists and more as a celebration of the work of Black women throughout music and art history.
“AFROPUNK creates an anchor for its growing audience of multicultural youth through its annual music festival and other events in Brooklyn, Miami, Minneapolis, Paris, London, Atlanta, Johannesburg, and more,” said the organizers of Afropunk in an official press release. “Now, with the new partnership with Lincoln Center, the global brand seeks to remind New York why it’s one of the most vital and vibrant cultural institutions in the city and beyond.”
Created in 2005 by graphic novelist and filmmaker James Spooner alongside co-founder Matthew Morgan, the AFROPUNK festival was founded as a way to highlight and create a community in Brooklyn for Black kids into punk music.
The project initially began after Spooner studied the scene as part of his Afro-punk documentary.
“I stopped hanging out in the New York hardcore scene because it was just so tough-guy and violent,” said Spooner in conversation with online magazine Racked. “And I was finding out more about the DIY punk scene that was a lot more political and what I thought was thoughtful.”
Following the release of the documentary, Spooner and Morgan used showings as a way to promote music by having live bands perform, officially creating AFROPUNK.
The inaugural festival included performances by acts like Living Colour, Cipher, Saul Williams, Tamar Kali and Honeychild Coleman.
Since its conception, the festival has since grown in size, expanding across the nation to places like Minneapolis and across the globe to places like London.
The acts have also grown to include performances by ground-breaking artists like Lauryn Hill, Grace Jones, Lenny Kravitz, Tyler the Creator, Solange and more.
