Category: Festivals

Festivals

Houston is set to celebrate 7th African festival

By Kelly Martins

A festival celebrating what it means to be of African descent is coming to Houston and it’ll have food, music, arts, and more. Houston African Festival, or Houston Afrifest, is back in the city for their 7th annual celebration.

On Saturday, September 14 you can spend all day at Houston Baptist University enjoying African arts, culture, and entertainment in the best possible way. From 12 to 8 p.m. Entry into the festival is free for children, students, and seniors, and just $5 to anyone else. Cheap fun is just how we like it.   

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Festivals

How Nigeria and Ghana have lost to Sierra Leone in a series of Jollof Rice festivals across America

By Staff writer

It seems the best jollof rice cooked across America may not be by Nigerians or Ghanaian but rather by Sierra Leoneans and Senegalese who have come tops across four Jollof rice competitions held across America so far.

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Festivals

Ghanaian culture celebrated with daytime festival at Crotona Park, in New York

Revelers gathered in Crotona Park Saturday to celebrate the culture and heritage of Ghana. Ghana Fest highlighted the sights and sounds of Ghana. Vendors sold traditional Ghanaian products, like clothing and food.

The daytime festival gave people a chance to learn about the country.

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Festivals

African Diaspora Film Festival Returns to GW

by Eve M. Ferguson

The African Diaspora International Film Festival returns to the Marvin Center at George Washington University from Aug. 9-11, celebrating “the human experience of people of color around the world.”

This year showcases heroes of African diaspora history, from the opening night with “Ali’s Comeback: The Untold Story,” directed by Art Jones, to the closing night film, “The Robeson Effect,” in which actors Danny Glover and Ben Guillory, friends for more than 50 years, tell how actor Paul Robeson affected their lives, leading to the creation of the Robey Theater Company in Los Angeles.

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Festivals

The Taste Of Africa Mini Fest Celebrates African Diaspora Culture In A Big Way

By  MICHAEL FRANK

The distinctiveness of New Orleans’ cultural milieu, the city’s dance styles, and culinary flavors owe much to the African diaspora. So, on July 27, The Taste of Africa Mini Fest, a new collaboration between the Nola Caribbean Experience and Afrobeat Nola, will celebrate these cultural elements, showcasing just how thankful New Orleans is for its African influences.

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Culture, Festivals

Delou Africa, Inc. Will Host African Diaspora Dance & Drum Festival of Florida in August

Delou Africa, Inc. will celebrate its 10 year anniversary by hosting the African Diaspora Dance & Drum Festival of Florida on August 2-4, 2019 at Little Haiti Cultural Complex (212 NE 59th Terrace, Miami, FL 33137).

“Our yearly festival is a springboard to community capacity building, to increase understanding within and between communities and to stimulate dialogue and increase awareness and sensitivity for culture within the African Diaspora,” says Njeri Plato, Executive Director, Delou Africa, Inc.

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Festivals

Africans v. African Americans Subject of Film Festival

Historical and recent migrations have resulted in the merging of cultures and shared experiences.

With its Migration Stories Film Series, the African Diaspora International Film Festival presents a rich palette of migration stories from around the world.

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Communities, Festivals

Ooni Of Ife To Lead Cultural Festival in Chicago

The Ooni of Ife, Oba Adeyeye Ogunwusi, has agreed to be the royal father during the maiden edition of the Yoruba Cultural Heritage Festival taking place in Chicago, United States of America in September.

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Festivals

Philadelphia braces for annual Odunde Festival

The annual Odunde Street Festival brings a taste of Africa to South Street, one of Philadelphia’s oldest, historically African American neighborhoods. The event is one of the largest African-American street festivals in America.

This year’s festival will take place Sunday, June 9.

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Festivals, Movies

The 26th New York African Film Festival opens at Lincoln Center May 30 – June 4

By Wilson Morales

The 26th New York African Film Festival(NYAFF) kicks off at BAM Film on Thursday, May 23, and runs through Monday, May 27, as a part of BAM’s popular dance and music festival.

The popular festival includes 68 films of multiple genres from 31 countries across the diaspora, and is presented by FLC and African Film Festival, Inc. (AFF).

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Festivals, Music

Mr. Eazi and Burna Boy highlight the rise of afrobeats at Coachella

By Makeda Easter

This has been a particularly global year for the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival. The lineup also includes Nigerian stars Mr. Eazi and Burna Boy, two artists representing afrobeats, a genre that’s steadily gaining traction in the U.S. and beyond.

It’s not the first year that Coachella has hosted Nigerian artists. The 2012 performance of Seun Kuti & Egypt 80, featuring Fela Kuti’s youngest son and band, is just one example of the handful of the country’s artists who have played the Indio festival. And 2018 was expected to be a big moment for afrobeats at Coachella when Wizkid was booked, but he missed the gig due to visa issues.

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Festivals, Movies

Watch out Hollywood, Nollywood is coming to town for a festival of African film

By Jeffery Fleishman

In the early days of Nigerian cinema, directors and actors wandered cities and tribal lands shooting movies straight to VHS tapes that were sold in kiosks and bartered in villages.

Those times of on-the-fly editing and pocket-change financing have since grown into one of the largest film industries in the world, a quicksilver business that is as attuned to juju priests as it is to the love affairs and nightclubs of the new rich.

The reach of what is known as Nollywood often strikes Kemi Adetiba, one of its most acclaimed directors, when she’s in Jamaica or New York. A taxi driver will invariably say, “Oh, God, I love Nigerian films” while waxing on about how those stories connect him to ancestors who centuries before had been uprooted from Africa by slavery and colonialism.

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