Article: Shireen Rahimi | Photography: Adolphus Amissah

Brooklyn was most definitely the place to be this past weekend!  The MTV Video Music Awards took center stage at The Barclay Center but a few blocks away an estimated 30,000 people turned out for the 8th annual AfroPunk Fest. The two-day festival, which took place in Commodore Barry Park, is touted as “the other black experience” and celebrates a wide range of music  from punk, hip hop, indie rock and the ballroom sound!

Afropunk Fest, which began in 2005 at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, has gained some notoriety for being one of the most diverse music festivals in the country. Afropunk co-founder Matthew Morgan said that the term was first coined by Mr. Morgan and James Spooner in the 2003 documentary “Afro-Punk” as a very literal description of black people who liked punk music.

“It’s taken on a life of its own,” he said. “Punk is an essence and a mind-set even more than a particular type of music. Miles Davis, even in jazz, when he started experimenting with free-form jazz, that was very punk for that time.”

This year’s festival was as large as it was diverse. The New York Police Department estimated between 10,000 and 15,000 people gathered in at Commodore Barry Park on Saturday alone. The crowd was mostly young and black, but there were also many other races and cultures represented.

If you’ve attended this event before you’re aware that Fashion stand-outs & performances definitely play a huge role in the AfroPunk weekend. The individuality found in the festival attendees resembled a mash-up of anything from “Williamsburg Fashionista” meets Africana. Whether you were twerking with Big Freedia and her hypnotizing booty bouncers, voguing down with MikeQ & Kevin JZ Prodigy or rocking out with Jada Pinkett Smith and her rock band, Wicked Wisdom, its without a doubt that AfroPunk gave you the authentic Brooklyn experience.

Check Out The AfroPunk Website – www.afropunk.com





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