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Afropunk is bigger than ever, but not without growing pains
It takes a long time to untangle how I feel walking through Fort Greene’s Commodore Barry Park during the thirteenth annual Afropunk Music Fest, my fifth in six years. It’s hot. These are the dog days, when New York sweats and contracts. The crowd is massive and brown and as always colorfully, meticulously attired. Flower crowns and thick curls. Bare skin and bejeweled lips and open toes and Doc Martens. We are ferocious about taking up space and getting to where we want to be. There are near stampedes before Erykah Badu, the headline act for the second day of shows, and at the end of Ibeyi’s set earlier that day, and before Miguel’s performance on the first night. When I am watching Janelle Monáe sing and dance a confident, carefully choreographed set with ample nods to James Brown, a girl edges by me to hold on to the steel railing I’m leaning into to catch herself from passing out. Afropunk has grown into a different, bigger, possibly unruly, version of itself. RECOMMENDED: Full guide to Afropunk Festival I live in Brooklyn, where the very first Afropunk was held in 2005, but many travel long distances to attend. Last year, a young relative, newly out, came from the Bay and went to the fest for the first time with a group of straight and queer friends she’d known in high school. She stayed with me, and I realized it was the perfect time to stay home, to get out of her way. That is, after all, what the festival, at its essence, is all about: Making your own way—a harmless