At 11 pm on Friday, January 6, the lengthy, barely steep path main as much as Ghana’s historic Black Star Sq. in Accra, the nation’s capital, was packed full of individuals. On the foremost entrance of the Black Star Sq. enviornment, uniformed guards and law enforcement officials stayed put, refusing to let the stressed crowd of younger individuals inside the place the extremely anticipated, inaugural music and cultural pageant Black Star Line Pageant was going down.
Lots of the attendees had come from outdoors the nation for the annual “Detty December,” a time period used to explain weeks of festivities that happen throughout Accra from December to early January, and others have been residents, desperate to be part of an occasion with a mission to bridge the hole between the African continent and the Black diaspora. There was just one drawback, although: The occasion attracted extra individuals than anticipated and reached most capability simply because it was getting began, and there have been nonetheless much more ready to be let in.
The inaugural Black Star Line Pageant was a free live performance organized by Ghanaian-American rapper Vic Mensa and fellow rapper Probability the Rapper as a strategy to join the Black Diaspora with the African continent by way of creativity and music. The live performance noticed each homegrown names on the lineup, from legendary Ghanaian rapper Sarkodie to the Asakaa Boys and Stonebwoy, and worldwide expertise, together with Erykah Badu, Jeremih, Meek Mill, Tobe Nwigwe, T-Ache, and Probability the Rapper and Vic Mensa themselves. The reside music arrived on the final day of the fest and got here after a week-long sequence of pop-up occasions and panel discussions organized by the Black Star Line group. 52,000 individuals have been in attendance on the live performance, marking an unofficial finish to “Detty December.”
[Asakaa Boys at Black Star Line Festival / Photo by Christian Saint]
“My expertise at Black Star Line Pageant was superb. The environment was electrical, from the music lineup all the way down to the style,” says Ekow Barnes, a famend Ghanaian author and cultural skilled. “With the camaraderie of my fellow Black individuals, all united in our shared love of the music and tradition, it was actually an unforgettable expertise that left me feeling uplifted and rejuvenated.”
The pageant’s objective of bridging the hole between the continent and the Black Diaspora is one echoed by its host nation Ghana. In 2019, the West African nation launched “The Yr of The Return” initiative, a journey marketing campaign that seeks to place Ghana as a house for the Black Diaspora and as a spot to reconnect with and uncover a few of their ancestral histories, whereas additionally sustaining a robust relationship with the African continent.
That mentioned, the occasion is definitely part of the nation’s residing cultural historical past — and it builds upon its political historical past, as properly. Black Star Line Pageant attracts its identify and a little bit of its mission from the Black Star Line, a delivery firm based in 1919 by Jamaican activist and political chief Marcus Garvey with the intention of offering Black staff between North America, the Caribbean, and Africa with financial alternatives. The historic significance of the fest is additional heightened by the truth that it befell on the Black Star Sq., the place the place Ghana turned the primary African nation to declare its independence from colonial rule, main the best way for different nations throughout the continent to observe swimsuit.
“So many people within the Diaspora really feel that Africa is that this unattainably distant international land, particularly these of us in America,” Vic Mensa, one of many foremost organizers, tells AltPress. “As we create extra alternatives for our individuals to return residence, I feel the collaborations and relationships will type themselves. Even this previous week opened doorways for therefore many individuals to share in creativity and pleasure that will in any other case have by no means crossed paths.”
[The crowd at Black Star Line Festival / Photo by Desiree Appau]
Vic Mensa hasn’t at all times had a robust relationship with Ghana, his father’s start nation. As a baby, the artist, who grew up in Chicago, visited occasionally, however by no means stayed lengthy sufficient to immerse himself within the tradition or construct lasting connections. All of this modified, although, when he returned to Ghana in 2020. “After I began coming to Accra and actually immersing myself within the youth tradition, I started to understand the immense privilege that I’ve to be in direct communication with my heritage, to really know the place I come from,” he says.
As Mensa just lately reconnected along with his Ghanaian roots, he felt a “accountability” to bridge the hole between the “two completely different worlds” he is from. That, in essence, is the place the thought for BSLF got here from. He says, “I started to appreciate that we as Black artists are performing all over the place on the globe apart from the continent of our origin. It is an unsustainable relationship. The followers exist; they have been residing, loving, and rising with the music, and the alternatives to attach with the artists simply haven’t existed. It’s from this realization that I started to dream of a pageant that would function a vessel for Black artists to carry out for the individuals of Africa.” So when Probability honored Mensa’s invitation to go to Ghana, Mensa shared his imaginative and prescient of a pageant that may carry Africans and the Black Diaspora collectively, and instantly he got here on board.
With Accra rising as a world cultural vacation spot, Black Star Line and different outstanding occasions like Afro Nation and AfroFuture (previously often known as Afrochella), function a possibility for the nation’s cultural picture.
For Mensa, the success of BSLF is a testomony to how necessary the mission behind it’s. “I solely allowed myself to have ironclad religion, however I do not suppose I knew precisely how enormous it could be. Not solely that, however there have been no main issues; the sound labored, there have been no stampedes, and nobody acquired harm. It was positively divinely guided,” he says.
[Chance the Rapper at Black Star Line Festival / Photo by Desiree Appau]
The occasion actually felt like the beginning of a long-awaited partnership between Africa and the Black Diaspora. The world was a big sea of Black faces all singing alongside, a primary for lots of the western artists who got here to carry out. T-Ache, as an illustration, frequently interrupted his performances to share how emotional that made him really feel. The vitality stayed excessive, with the present solely drawing to an in depth round 6 within the morning.
The occasion has additionally garnered a good quantity of controversy, as a result of invite of, and Probability’s protection of the invite of, comic Dave Chappelle, who’s spoken out towards the LGBTQ+ group lately. In a current interview with Rolling Stone in regards to the matter, the rapper mentioned, “I wished everybody to really feel as welcome and communal as attainable. And so if having Dave there made individuals really feel like they weren’t, that they didn’t have house or that they weren’t welcome, that was not my intention.” Chappelle’s presence on the pageant felt especially fraught, although, as Ghana is in the course of passing a harmful anti-LGBTQ+ legislation.
Past that, the sheer existence of the pageant had been met with skepticism amongst some locals. Whereas the nation’s artistic sector is booming, Ghanaians are additionally residing by way of a excessive price of residing disaster, with the cedi falling drastically towards the greenback. In order locals expertise this era of extreme inflation, there is a sense of trepidation surrounding how an inflow of vacationers would possibly have an effect on their financial system, and what function festivals like BSLF would possibly play. “I can’t fake that this pageant is the answer to the results of centuries of exploitation,” says Vic Mensa. “Nonetheless, I’ve made positive that we’re abandoning worth versus eradicating it. For that reason, I am constructing boreholes throughout Ghana to offer clear water to communities that want it.”
Barnes, nevertheless, believes that music festivals like this are useful to the nation’s financial system. “Cultural moments like this are a supply of financial progress and job creation, each within the direct and oblique sense. It’s an avenue to generate income for native companies by way of elevated tourism, and in the identical vein, it creates jobs for individuals throughout the music, trend, occasion planning, and hospitality industries,” he says.
Moreover, occasions like this are prone to set Ghana up as a first-rate location for worldwide artist excursions, thereby organically propping up the artistic financial system within the nation.
“Past the financial advantages, it additionally has a constructive affect on our nation’s social and emotional well-being. These music festivals are a type of escapism from the cruel realities of the residing disaster, offering us with a possibility to return collectively and neglect our troubles, even whether it is for a short while,” he says.
Barnes continues, “Everybody desires to go the place they’re cherished. The vitality of the group was very infectious at Black Star Line Pageant. All all through the present, the group was dancing, singing and getting the lyrics to the T. These are the issues artists like to see, so why not?”
“The artistic scene in Ghana is electrical. It is accelerating at a feverish tempo; music, high quality artwork, and trend are all quickly advancing. I imagine we’ll be seeing many extra worldwide artists acting on the continent transferring ahead. The fact is that the fan bases are engaged and awaiting, the infrastructure and initiative are what’s been missing,” Vic Mensa says.
And as for what the way forward for the Black Star Line Pageant seems to be like? Mensa envisions it to be “Internationally Black and exquisite.”
