Meshell Ndegeocello, Fishbone to headline 2024 BRIC Celebrate Brooklyn!
Meshell Ndegeocello is among the headliners of the 2024 BRIC Celebrate Brooklyn! festival, the longest-running free, outdoor performing arts festival in New York City.
The recent Grammy winner will join trailblazing punk-ska band Fishbone, retro soul ensemble Thee Sacred Souls, Belgian dance sensations Charlotte Adigery and Bolis Pupul, rising Afrobeat star Seun Kuti, and sought-after turntablist DJ Spinna for the event kicking off June 8 at the Lena Horne Bandshell in Prospect Park.
The festival’s theme, “Raised in Brooklyn,” is a tribute to the role the borough has played across the global culture through its icons, public servants, artists, community activists and business leaders.
Ndegeocello — who once called Carroll Gardens her home for about a decade — has been a longtime supporter of the Downtown Brooklyn-based nonprofit arts organization behind the festival. She performed at BRIC JazzFest in 2018 and crafted the soundscape for Sune Woods‘ 2022 contemporary art exhibition “Aragonite Stars.”
BRIC Celebrate Brooklyn! executive director Saidah Blount considers Ndegeocello a “hometown hero.”
“Meshell continually shows us why, in my opinion, she is a quintessential ‘Raised By Brooklyn’ creative,” she told the Daily News on Thursday. “She enables vital conversations about topics that are core to BRIC’s mission, including what it looks like to be creative across cultural lines, political thought, and diverse community perspectives.”
Running through Aug. 24, this year’s festival will also host free film screenings of the new Bob Marley biopic “One Love” and Spike Lee’s seminal movie “Do the Right Thing,” which celebrates its 35th anniversary.
On June 12, BRIC will honor DJ D-Nice at the 2024 BRIC House Party & Gala.