DIASPORA CALLING! REVIEW: LAURYN HILL, ERYKAH BADU AND 35,000 PEOPLE CELEBRATE THE POWER OF BLACK CULTURE

There are fest­ivals, and then there are cul­tur­al moments. Dia­spora Call­ing! firmly belonged to the latter.

More than 35,000 people des­cen­ded on Milton Keynes Nation­al Bowl for the land­mark UK event, con­ceived and cur­ated by Ms. Lauryn Hill and hos­ted by Dave Chap­pelle. Bring­ing togeth­er gen­er­a­tions of hip hop, R&B, soul, reg­gae, Afrobeat, Afrobeats and UK rap, the day felt less like a con­ven­tion­al fest­iv­al and more like a huge fam­ily gath­er­ing for the glob­al Afric­an diaspora.

The line-up alone car­ried ser­i­ous weight. Ms. Lauryn Hill, Wyclef Jean, Erykah Badu, Giggs, Fire­boy DML, YG Mar­ley, Zion Mar­ley, Seun Kuti and The Com­pozers all appeared, along­side DJ sets from DJ OBI and Michael Brun.

Dave Chap­pelle was a com­mand­ing pres­ence through­out the event. More than simply a host, he helped frame some of the day’s biggest moments with the sharp­ness and cul­tur­al aware­ness that have defined his career. His appear­ances con­nec­ted a pro­gramme span­ning gen­er­a­tions, con­tin­ents and genres, giv­ing the fest­iv­al a sense of pur­pose bey­ond the per­form­ances themselves.

Erykah Badu delivered the effort­less, oth­er­worldly pres­ence audi­ences have come to expect from her. Mov­ing through songs includ­ing ‘Apple Tree’, ‘Win­dow Seat’, ‘On & On’ and ‘Back in the Day’, she reminded the Nation­al Bowl why her influ­ence con­tin­ues to stretch far bey­ond neo-soul. Badu does not simply per­form her music; she cre­ates her own atmo­sphere and invites the audi­ence to step inside it.

Brit­ish rap was rep­res­en­ted by Giggs, whose set pro­duced one of the day’s biggest sur­prises when Kano joined him onstage. Hear­ing ‘P’s & Q’s’ and ‘Rude­boy’ at the Nation­al Bowl brought togeth­er two defin­ing voices in UK rap. It was a power­ful moment that recog­nised the his­tory and evol­u­tion of a scene that once had to fight for space at major Brit­ish events.

Fire­boy DML rep­res­en­ted the glob­al rise of Afrobeats, while Seun Kuti brought the force, musi­cian­ship and polit­ic­al spir­it of Afrobeat to the stage. YG Mar­ley per­formed his glob­al hit ‘Praise Jah in the Moon­light’, and Zion Mar­ley hon­oured his grand­fath­er Bob Mar­ley with ‘Three Little Birds’ before per­form­ing his own track, ‘Best of Me’.

These per­form­ances cap­tured the wider vis­ion behind Dia­spora Call­ing!: a cel­eb­ra­tion of the music­al and cul­tur­al con­nec­tions that have trav­elled between Africa, the Carib­bean, the UK, the US and Black com­munit­ies around the world.

The clos­ing per­form­ance belonged to Ms. Lauryn Hill and Wyclef Jean, who reunited to cel­eb­rate the 30^th anniversary of The Fugees’ land­mark album, The Score. Hear­ing ‘Ready or Not’ and ‘Fu-Gee-La’ per­formed three dec­ades later demon­strated just how little their power has diminished.

The set also trav­elled through Hill and Jean’s indi­vidu­al cata­logues. Wyclef delivered ‘911’, while Hill per­formed solo favour­ites includ­ing ‘Ex-Factor’ and ‘To Zion’. YG Mar­ley and Zion Mar­ley joined them onstage, cre­at­ing a moment that con­nec­ted music­al his­tory, fam­ily leg­acy and a new generation.

Then came one of the night’s defin­ing moments.

The Com­pozers accom­pan­ied Hill dur­ing the clos­ing set, adding the rich­ness and live music­al energy for which they have become known. With Hill, Wyclef, Badu and the Mar­ley fam­ily all con­trib­ut­ing to the finale, the stage became a liv­ing rep­res­ent­a­tion of the festival’s cross-gen­er­a­tion­al purpose.

Dia­spora Call­ing! was not without the chal­lenges that come with sta­ging such an ambi­tious pro­gramme. With so many artists, genres and cul­tur­al ideas com­pet­ing for atten­tion, parts of the event could feel expans­ive rather than tightly focused. How­ever, its greatest strength was pre­cisely that ambi­tion. This was nev­er designed to be just anoth­er sequence of per­form­ances. It was attempt­ing to build some­thing much broader.

The fest­iv­al also used its plat­form to address the polit­ic­al real­it­ies facing Black com­munit­ies. MP Bell Ribeiro-Addy delivered a mes­sage from Hill centred on repar­at­ory justice, strength­en­ing con­nec­tions across the Afric­an dia­spora and cre­at­ing the insti­tu­tions and oppor­tun­it­ies needed for com­munit­ies to shape their own futures.

It was an import­ant remind­er that Dia­spora Call­ing! was not simply cel­eb­rat­ing cul­ture as enter­tain­ment. It was also recog­nising cul­ture as his­tory, res­ist­ance, own­er­ship and col­lect­ive power.

The scale of the occa­sion was reflec­ted back­stage, where Gunna, Com­mon, Raps­ody, Tiwa Sav­age, Little Simz, Stoneb­woy, Vic­tony, Derek Chisora, Sab­rina Elba, Tolu Coker, Zeze Millz and Foday Dum­buya were among the artists and cul­tur­al fig­ures spot­ted. Their pres­ence rein­forced the feel­ing that some­thing sig­ni­fic­ant was tak­ing place.

That cul­tur­al foot­print stretched bey­ond Milton Keynes. In the days lead­ing up to the fest­iv­al, Hill and Wyclef met fans at 180 Stu­di­os to sign albums, mem­or­ab­il­ia and exclus­ive mer­chand­ise mark­ing 30 years of The Score. Mean­while, Lauren Halsey’s takeover of the Pic­ca­dilly Lights trans­formed one of London’s most recog­nis­able land­marks into a pub­lic cel­eb­ra­tion of Black ima­gin­a­tion, memory and community.

At its heart, Dia­spora Call­ing! was about con­nec­tion: between con­tin­ents, genres, gen­er­a­tions and dif­fer­ent expres­sions of Black iden­tity. It cel­eb­rated the artists who laid the found­a­tions while mak­ing space for those car­ry­ing the cul­ture forward.

With Lauryn Hill at its cre­at­ive centre, the event demon­strated an ambi­tion extend­ing far bey­ond the tra­di­tion­al fest­iv­al format. From Kano join­ing Giggs to Erykah Badu shar­ing the stage with Hill, the day delivered the kind of moments that will live on long after the final song.

The UK debut of Dia­spora Call­ing! was bold, imper­fect, his­tor­ic and neces­sary. More import­antly, it cre­ated a major new plat­form where dia­spora cul­ture was not treated as a trend or a side attrac­tion. It was the main event.

And with 35,000 people gathered to wit­ness it, the mes­sage could not have been clear­er: the dia­spora is not wait­ing to be invited in. It is build­ing its own stage.

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Rishma

Edit­or / PR Con­sult­ant at No Bounds

Rishma Dhali­w­al has extens­ive exper­i­ence study­ing and work­ing in the music and media industry. Hav­ing writ­ten a thes­is on how Hip Hop acts as a social move­ment, she has spent years research­ing and con­nect­ing with artists who use the art form as a tool for bring­ing a voice to the voiceless.

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