Oshun at Africa Oyé

If it’s June then it must be Africa Oyé! I’ve been photographing this fabulous free festival every year since I began Blipping (although I’ve been attending it far longer than that) and it’s always an absolute delight!

Today’s festivities coincided with Windrush Day and gave the record-breaking, and beautifully diverse, crowd cause aplenty to reflect on the immense contribution the people of Africa, and the African diaspora, have made to life in the UK, to Europe and to the world, despite the less-than open-armed welcome they have often received.

As Zithulele 'Jovi' Zabani Nkosi of Soweto’s BCUC (Bantu Continued Uhuru Consciousness) said, “If white South Africans are recognised as African then it’s about time that black Europeans are recognised as European.” Amen to that.

After weeks or rainy and indifferent weather, today could hardly have been more perfect and between acts I found myself making for the shade of the Sefton Park trees before heading back to the stage to get my groove on! I saw...

Satin Beige - a young R&B singer, cellist and graduate of Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts (LIPA)

Gasper Nali - a Kwela musician from Malawi who plays a homemade 3-metre long Babatoni bass guitar and kick drum combo

Oshun - two young women from Washington DC who describe their take on hip-hop as “the sonic manifestation of Afrofuturism”, which sums it up perfectly. These two are surely destined for the big time and they were clearly already a hit with the young people in the crowd who sang along throughout! I loved their ‘alien’ contact lenses too.

Wesli - the Haitian superstar whom I last saw here a couple of years ago

BCUC - amazingly energetic and political music from Soweto. Essentially, South African hardcore punk, or so it seemed to me. I loved them!

Horace Andy - Jamaican reggae legend!

Thanks, also, to DJ Edu for keeping everyone entertained between the acts.

I’ve added quite a few extra photographs today!

Today’s tune is ‘Protect Yourself’ by Oshun https://youtube.com/watch?v=fYBRappkqSc

More to come tomorrow...

(PS Arachne, I’ve missed you this year!)