There’s a Free Festival Happening This Weekend Dedicated to Black Women & Non-Binary voices in Music
This Saturday and Sunday, Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park hosts Power & Respect, the second of four weekends inside East Bank’s new Music is Black Festival. It’s free, it’s outdoors, and you don’t need a ticket.
A search for “Black British women in music” turns up the same five or six names, most of them slotted into R&B and soul, like that’s the whole story. It isn’t, and it never was. That’s the gap lead curator Gillian Jackson built this weekend to close.
“Our view of Black British Women in music is outdated and it often centres R&B and soul. If you Google ‘Black British Women in Music’ the result is very outdated from the breadth and depth of what’s out there. We want Power and Respect to show you the spectrum of brilliant women, trans and non binary folk who are smashing it now but also those who have paved the way.”
Gillian Jackson
Power & Respect puts Black women’s role in music front and centre, not just the artists on stage but the people behind the scenes and the systems that let scenes exist at all. The numbers explain why that matters: men still account for around 70% of bookings across the industry, and within that remaining share, Black women are represented at an even smaller fraction. This weekend is a direct answer to that, built by pulling together partners working across legacy and future-facing live music and DJ culture into one programme.
It sits inside a bigger eight month season too. This is East Bank’s second of four themed weekends running through September, inspired by V&A East’s new exhibition on Black British music, with Queer Frequencies and Black to the Future still to come.
What’s on
Jamz Supernova curates Saturday across both main stages, bringing Lava La Rue, Terri Walker, the Cassie Kinoshi Quartet and twenty-five years of Cooly G into the same lineup. Sunday hands the reins to Yazmin Lacey, TYSON and BORN N BREAD, with yeahitsrenee and Sheila Maurice-Grey of Kokoroko on the bill alongside Cleopatra and Polly Chronic, two DJs stepping onto a festival stage for the first time through BORN N BREAD’s own competition.
Over at Sadler’s Wells East, The Dance Floor Is Black runs its own programme all weekend. Saturday opens with a family session before an afternoon panel on the women who built UK reggae, then Jade Hackett closes the night with Let Love Be Your Rock, featuring a live set from Carroll Thompson. Sunday winds the weekend down with L’attise Rhoden and Glade Marie on the decks.
No sign up, no ticket, just turn up. Everything above is free and unticketed, doors open from midday both days.
Full lineup and set times at queenelizabetholympicpark.co.uk/themusicisblackfestival.