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BRIC Celebrate Brooklyn! announces more than 20 free and benefit events

By

Precious Fondren

Published May 3, 2023

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A crowded outdoor concert venue illuminated after dark

 

Courtesy BRIC

By

Precious Fondren

Published May 3, 2023

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Prospect Park's Lena Horne Bandshell will come alive when BRIC Celebrate Brooklyn! kicks off its eagerly anticipated summer festival on June 7.

This year's programming, announced Wednesday, includes more than 20 free and benefit concerts, dance performances, film screenings and celebrations marking Juneteenth and the 50th anniversary of hip-hop. And for the first time, programs reflect input from an artist-curator: singer, multi-instrumentalist and composer Taja Cheek, more widely known as L’Rain.

As previously announced, Celebrate Brooklyn! will open with a free show featuring blues veteran Taj Mahal, who shares a bill with British singer Corinne Bailey Rae and The Harlem Gospel Travelers. Seattle indie-folk group The Head and the Heart concludes the series on Aug. 24, with Massachusetts-born singer-songwriter Izzy Heltai opening.

Among the other acts set to take the stage over the course of the summer are R&B trailblazers Kelela and Liv.e, Welsh art-rock icon John Cale, R&B crooner JOE, wassoulou diva Oumou Sangaré, indie-pop singer-songwriter Indigo De Souza and a program pairing Pakistani vocalist Ali Sethi with Indian-American singer and rapper Raja Kumari.

Some are household names; others, not yet. Either way, festival executive producer Diane Eber urges New Yorkers to take a chance.

“I think people should know and understand that they should come whether or not they've heard of the artist,” Eber said. “This season, maybe more than any I've been involved with, has so much depth.” An additional piece of advice: “Come early and see the openers, because every artist that we put on this stage has been so intentional, and connects to the other artists on the stage.”

Taja Cheek, who performs as L'Rain, is Celebrate Brooklyn's first-ever artist curator.

Tim Mosenfelder/Getty Images

Conversations about goals, execution and bookings for this year's festival, whose stated theme is “looking to the future while honoring our past,” involved input from Cheek, whose albums and songs as L’Rain have landed on year-end best-of lists in The New York Times and elsewhere.

Helping to bring the festival together this year was a “huge deal,” said Cheek, who was raised in Crown Heights and often attended Celebrate Brooklyn! events with family.

“It's really a staple of cultural life in Brooklyn,” Cheek said. “It's really important also because there just needs to be free entertainment for people in the borough, and a lot of that has gone away over the past few years. It's really incredible that something like BRIC Celebrate Brooklyn can continue on.”

As artist-curator, Cheek says, she felt like she was always in research mode, searching for artists to bring into the fold while also ensuring each bill was diverse enough for a large audience.

“You're always having conversations, and also seeing music, and going with each other to see music,” she said. “So it's about our own tastes, but it's also about how to make the best possible lineup. Sometimes that means reaching out of your comfort zone, and trying to learn about other music and other cultures that you were not as familiar with.”

After boosting his profile with a historic Coachella performance, Pakistani singer Ali Sethi performs at Celebrate Brooklyn! on July 22.

Scott Dudelson/Getty Images for Coachella

Eber said BRIC had been thinking about creating an artist-curator role for a number of years, had difficulty finding a creative who didn’t mind talking about unartistic things like show fees. “Many artists you know just want to be artists,” she said, “and some artists, all they want to do is hustle. Taja brought a voice to the team we have that was needed and complementary in a great way.”

For the second year BRIC Celebrate Brooklyn! is partnering with the Robert Randolph Foundation to mount a Juneteenth Unity Fest (June 17). Cheek says incorporating the holiday’s Texan origins accurately was the most important part of curating the event and ensuring it would feel authentic and not just performative.

“That's something that we've been talking about a lot in our meetings as we prepare for this day: just really understanding freedom celebrations across the country, and how Juneteenth is rooted in a Texas tradition,” she said. “Every place has their own way of celebrating, and has their own history.”

Exactly who will be on the bill for the Hip-Hop 50th Anniversary Weekend (Aug. 11-12) remains to be revealed. But given that BRIC President Wes Jackson was a co-founder of the Brooklyn Hip-Hop Festival, Eber hints that surprises are in store.

“We have a lot of top secret things in the works,” she said. “But you'll also see hip-hop throughout our season. We've been committed to presenting hip-hop for our whole entire history of 45 years.”

The regal Malian wassoulou singer Oumou Sangaré makes her Celebrate Brooklyn! debut July 14.

Courtesy CityZen Music

Here's the complete lineup of summer concerts and festivals announced as of today:

For more information on the artist lineup, tickets and more, go here.

Tagged

Music

arts

brooklyn

Precious Fondren

Precious is a former WNYC & Gothamist culture reporter.

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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations

Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations

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