We Speak Events

Africa Oyé announces FULL MUSIC LINE-UP for 2023 Festival in Sefton Park!

Published

3 years ago

June 7, 2023

Don Reed

Africa Oyé Festival are delighted to announce the final wave of live acts for their 31st annual celebration of music and culture this June!

Acts representing Ghana, D.R Congo, Cuba, and Colombia are included in the reveal.

Headlining this year’s festival are Afrobeat superstar, Seun Kuti and pioneering dancehall singer, Tanya Stephens. They are also joined on the line-up by British/Congolese rapper and singer, ZieZie whose addition to the line-up will delight his 100,000+ followers on TikTok.

Artistic Director, Paul Duhaney, said of the announcement, “We’re really pleased with the line-up for this year ‘s festival and how it reflects our ongoing mission to showcase the music of Africa and the wider Diaspora. Artists from Liverpool to Accra and London to Havana will take over Sefton Park this summer for a truly international celebration.”

On 17th & 18th June 2023, thousands in Sefton Park will celebrate the music and culture of Africa with two free days of fantastic music, workshops, DJs, dance, food stalls and a range of traders in the Village.

This final line up announcement includes Alogte Oho- the number one Frafra gospel artist from within the explosive music scene of Bolgatanga in Northern Ghana. Accompanied by his powerful female choir, the group is driven by super-tight horns and vintage keyboards; Alogte Oho & his Sounds of Joy (pictured above) will ‘surprise, delight and inspire’.

Creating ‘a modern-day cocktail of two of the great world musics’, Grupo Lokito will be fusing blistering contemporary Congolese grooves with the fire of Cuban music on the festival Sunday afternoon. Audiences can expect glorious melodious vocals, soaring guitars, and lilting keyboards from this exciting group.

Describing their music as “a combination of life experiences, dreams and joys that have fed off of our direct connection to Africa”, Soukustek are a group born under the gaze of the Caribbean Sea surrounding the Coastal city of Cartagena de Indias in Colombia. Also playing the Sunday afternoon of the festival, the band combines the rhythms and the sounds of guitars that arrived from Africa in the 70s and seamlessly blends them with the flavour of the Colombian Caribbean.

The full line-up announcement also features Liverpool’s own, Ni Maxine. The neo-jazz singer’s performance on Saturday afternoon will mark the first time an artist from our Oyé Introduces programme has been invited back to be part of the main stage line-up, such was the acclaim following her performance in 2022.

Launched in 2015, ‘Oyé Introduces’ sees local artists open the musical programme on both days of the festival – following community performances from Merseyside cultural organisations – giving some of the area’s brightest young talent the chance to share the stage with international stars. This year, the programme sees R&B vocal harmony group, AMBA and South Liverpool rap trio, Black Borough take the stage at Sefton Park.

The 2023 Africa Oyé festival will take place on 17th and 18th June in Liverpool’s Sefton Park on the Review Field from 12:30pm til 9:30pm both days. Entrance is FREE and you do not need a ticket.

We Speak Events

Atlanta Screening of The Alabama Solution Brings Together Panel of Advocates, Leaders, and Community Voices

Published

1 month ago

March 9, 2026

Justiz Walker

Michael Walker/@UmeekImages

ATLANTA, GA — Community leaders, advocates, and residents gathered in Atlanta for a special screening of the Oscar-nominated HBO documentary The Alabama Solution, an evening centered on film, dialogue, and community engagement around issues of justice and incarceration.

Hosted at 2345 Cheshire Bridge Road NE, the event brought together organizations and community members for a formal evening of reflection and conversation following the powerful documentary. The film, co-directed by Andrew Jarecki and Charlotte Kaufman and co-produced by Alex Duran, offers an intimate and unfiltered look into Alabama’s prison system.

At the heart of the documentary are the voices of justice-impacted individuals Melvin “Bennu” Ray and Robert “Kinetik” Council, whose experiences shed light on the realities inside the prison system while challenging viewers to consider deeper questions about accountability, dignity, and reform.

Following the screening, a panel discussion brought together leaders and advocates working in justice reform and community outreach. The conversation was moderated by Bridgette Simpson of Barred Business, who guided the dialogue with panelists representing several organizations committed to addressing issues within the justice system.

Panelists included Gerald Griggs of the NAACP, Kimberly Jones of Fork the System, Octavious Holiday of the Positive Outreach Development Society, Kevin Marshall of The Marshall Law Group, LLC, Kathryn Hamoudah of the Southern Center for Human Rights, and Christopher Willars of The Life Unit Inc.

Each panelist offered insight shaped by their work in advocacy, legal reform, and community engagement. Their perspectives highlighted the far-reaching effects incarceration can have on families and communities, while also emphasizing the importance of awareness, accountability, and continued dialogue around the issues presented in the film.

The screening was supported by several organizations dedicated to justice and civic engagement, including One for Justice, Dream.org, Barred Business, the Southern Center for Human Rights, The Life Unit, the Center for Civic Innovation, the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), and the Free Atlanta Abolition Movement.

The evening also served as a moment of connection for those in attendance, including family members and advocates whose lives have been impacted by the justice system. Through film and conversation, the gathering created space for reflection and for communities to engage with the realities highlighted in the documentary.

As conversations continued after the screening, the event underscored the power of storytelling to bring people together, raise awareness, and encourage deeper consideration of issues that often remain unseen by the public.

As momentum continues to grow around conversations sparked by the documentary, organizers are encouraging community members to take an additional step by supporting efforts aimed at protecting justice-impacted individuals from discrimination.

Advocates are currently inviting the public to sign a virtual petition card supporting the establishment of a statewide Protected Class Ordinance in Georgia, which would help ensure justice-impacted individuals are protected from discrimination in employment, housing, and opportunity.

You may find and share the virtual petition here:

Statewide Protected Class

https://www.theprotectedclassnetwork.org/sign-our-petition