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Brooklyn Magazine, a publication that relaunched in 2020 with a revamped focus on Brooklyn's myriad communities, is kicking off a new summer festival June 15-18 featuring homegrown art and culture—at its core, it'll be by and for Brooklynites.
As part of The Brooklyn Magazine Festival, on June 17 and 18, Prospect Park's LeFrak Center at Lakeside will light up with a music festival featuring headliners Car Seat Headrest, hip-hop legend DJ Premier, Zimbabwean-Australian musician Tkay Maidza, local art rockers and DFA label members Guerrilla Toss, as well as Empress Of, Gabriel Garzón-Montano and Sudan Archives.
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There will also be four nights of club shows with Starchild & The New Romantics and Jessy Lanza at Brooklyn Made, as well as an official after-party curated by Boston Chery featuring Lion Babe’s Astro Raw and local powerhouse producer iMarkkeyz.
Wild Birds and Friends & Lovers are curating incredible, including a special live-band edition of Friends & Lovers Fried Dynamite party, featuring Grammy-award winner J. Hoard, Zuzuka Poderosa and Sugar Sugar, with a free DJ party that follows. Miles Tucker and The Many Blessings Ft. Jonathan Scales, Lucky Chops Brass Band and Monokike will also perform throughout the remainder of the festival. A full line-up can be seen here.
It's not just a music festival, however. Brooklyn Magazine is aiming to connect with its readers, so the festival will host "Brooklyn Magazine: Off the page and on the stage"—two evenings of intimate conversations at Dumbo Loft with experts of the cultural, creative and political realms of Brooklyn. You can hear from comedians Wyatt Cenac and Donwill, the cast of Showtime’s hit show Flatbush Misdemeanors, City Councilors Justin Brannan and Chi Ossé, Brooklyn Bridge Ventures founder Charlie O’Donnell, Humble Bloom CEO Solonje Burnett, as well as leaders in the Brooklyn arts and culture scene from BAM, BRIC, Brooklyn Museum, House of Yes, Kings Theater and more. These chats will be slated for the evenings on Wednesday and Thursday, June 15 and 16, for free, which you can reserve right here.
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President and editor-in-chief, Brian Braiker, says the festival is a way to "stop and connect" with its audience and the people it covers.
"It's a way to get down on the ground with the people who read Brooklyn Magazine and the people making culture, whether it's music, art or food, through these talks and the smaller, local club shows as well as the big festival itself," he adds. The magazine tapped some of the talent producers behind the AfroPunk Festival, including Kiana Rodriguez and James Petrine.
"This is a big undertaking and we needed to enlist some help," Braiker tells us. "These people really understand not just what's happening in the borough but culturally across its music landscape. It's a dynamic, diverse, eclectic and really cool lineup that they've managed to pull together."
We're excited to see the inaugural Brooklyn Magazine take off and look forward to how it blossoms in years to come. So far, Brooklyn Magazine has impressed us with its commitment to Brooklyn.
When the magazine relaunched with new editorial leadership, it was done with the hopes of speaking to, for and about the communities it covers in a more grassroots and meaningful way, Braiker tells us. The magazine covers "a mix of topics, just like Brooklyn is a mix," he adds. "It really is about getting local and multiple touch points to the communities we all live in and interact with on a daily basis."
Tickets for The Brooklyn Magazine Festival, June 15-18, start at $55 for general single-day admission and go up to $180 for a two-day VIP admission.