Blavity brings Lil Wayne, Monica to Nashville in festival highlighting Black community

For the first time, the Blavity House Party Music Festival is coming to Nashville, where thousands of music lovers are expected to attend the unique two-day event filled with music, food and culture.

Nearly a week after CMA festival, this year’s Blavity House Party will take place at Municipal Auditorium June 14-15. And more than just a festival, fans will immerse themselves into a full experience, which highlights Black culture in music city.

Senior Vice President of Live Events and AfroTech Simone Tyler says Blavity Inc. has been curating events for the last 10 years and “the ultimate mission is to create experiences, and create community within the Black community.”

Blavity Inc. hosts events all throughout the U.S., and Tyler says the team was intentional about bringing the festival to Nashville. This year, Lil Wayne, Monica, Blxst, Dru Hill, Travis Porter and many others are all set to perform.

“One of the most important things to us is to also think about markets and communities that don't often have large Black events. When we looked at the landscape, we knew that there were going to be events this summer and cities like Chicago, Atlanta, Los Angeles and New York.”

She added, “But we realized that there was an opportunity, particularly when you think about music and Nashville also being a home to rich musical history, for us to bring this experience to Nashville.”

And Tyler says the festival will include a diverse list of performances, across many different genres. Fans can expect to hear rap, hip hop, afro-beats, country music and more.

“Our intention was to kind of show the full diversity of the diaspora and the music diaspora.”

Blavity Inc. has been announcing more guests and performances leading up to the festival, and some of those include Black country artists like Reyna Roberts, featured on Beyoncé's latest album "Cowboy Carter."

“Nashville is a place often known for country music. And so hopefully, this experience and integrating artists into our programming, will be an opportunity for people to really get the shine that they deserve as country music artists of color.”

And it certainly seems the multi-day, multi-stage experience will be one to remember.

Blavity Inc. will be partnering with more than 15 small businesses, multiple vendors and restaurants. They are even collaborating with local party promoters around the city.

“Our intention is to make sure that the dollars that we do spend go to black owned businesses as much as possible,” Tyler says.

Blavity's festival to celebrate Black-owned businesses

And these locally owned businesses are equally excited for the opportunity to showcase their brands and help others understand what makes Nashville so unique.

On both Friday and Saturday from noon to 8 P.M., a marketplace will play host to a variety of Black-owned businesses that are based in the Nashville area.

For Nashville native Carlos Partee, a festival of this magnitude catered to Black Nashville is exactly what the city needs.

“Nashville is constantly overshadowed by honky tonks, hot chicken and country music but the city offers so much more than that.”

In 2017, Partee decided to create the brand Cashville so Nashvillians could proudly rep the city they call home.

“Due to rampant gentrification, a lot of the places and people that were near and dear to my heart started to move or be displaced from wherever they were living,” he said.

“I was traveling a lot of the time too, and I was seeing in other cities like Los Angeles, Miami, and New York have t-shirts that represent the cities or even the zip codes people were from. With Nashville being on the forefront of culture, I knew we needed something like that as well.”

Nicknamed Cashville in the 90s, for Black Nashvillians, the name represents so much more than the connotation with money or wealth.

“When we were growing up, we thought it was kind of corny because nobody was relating to it,” he said while laughing. “Now, we kind of took this term and turned it into something to be proud of and that represent where we're from. Whether if its’s through t-shirts, the tweets or community organizing, we’re proud to let people know where we’re from.”

Partee is also the co-founder of The Nashville Black Market which celebrates Black business on the first Friday of every month for an outdoor market / family reunion style party.

Their latest market featured over 70 Black business along with a performance from Willie Jones, who is also featured on "Cowboy Carter" and Compton Cowboy’s Randy Savvy.

“We're putting like a microscope on Black Nashville and showing you that we do have culture and additionally can also bring in tourism.”

As one of the many vendors of the festival, Partee is excited to showcase the city that made him while also helping other to see why Black Nashville absolutely deserves a platform to showcase the gems of their city.

“Black Nashville is here. We're not just here for festivals, during Black history month, but we are here 24/7. I'm excited to be able to show the work that we're doing and continue to give Nashville that blueprint that shows that we can and should have spaces like this that celebrate Black businesses on a national scale.”

For those excited to try some of food Nashville has to offer, fan-favorite Slim & Husky’s has created a specialty item specifically for Blavity. Nicknamed the House Pizza, its comprised of the traditional pepperoni and sausage pie with a spicy red sauce cheese blend and topped with special hot honey.

“We also plan on surprising attendees with bunch of free pizzas in the crowd during our segment on stage,” said CMO and Co-Founder, Clint Gray.

Created in 2015 by three childhood friends with a love for pizza, art and music, Slim & Husky's Pizza Beeria has grown to be a force in the Nashville area and beyond.

“We've got our team from corporate to the local level super excited about the opportunity to introduce our brand to those who might not have had a chance to eat the Slim & Husky’s way.”

While this isn’t the first time the gourmet pizza joint was worked with Blavity, they are excited for a festival of this magnitude catering to the Black community in their hometown.

“I'm looking forward to Nashville seeing that a Black-owned company can organize and build a event such as Blavity House Music Festival in this area,” he said. “I'm looking forward to the city being introduced to some of their counterparts and local favs on stage and witnessing peaceful fun in the name of good music.”

You can find business like Cashville etc, and vendors like Slim & Husky's at the Off The Shelves marketplace or at concessions on both days of the festival.

You can also try more of Slim & Husky's specialty item at their Sundays in Cashville party on June 16th.

Blavity House party music festival kicks off 2 P.M. on Friday.

This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Blavity House Party brings Lil Wayne, Monica to Nashville