Take a look through 30 years of Black Joy, celeb sightings, and celebration of our culture through music on the ESSENCE festival stage NEW ORLEANS – JULY 04: Singer Rihanna performs during day one of ...

Stream songs from Cardi B, Brandy & Monica, Public Enemy, Kehlani, and more before ESSENCE Festival 2026 kicks off.

The Essence Festival of Culture is starting to firm up the details of its music lineup for when it returns to New Orleans ...

is slated to do double duty for this July’s Essence Music Festival in the Superdome. In addition to headlining the main stage, Blige will, in the months leading up to the festival, serve as its ...

While the event is technically called the Essence Festival of Culture, one of its biggest draws is the nightly concert featuring some of the biggest names in Black music. But at the 2025 Essence Fest ...

New Orleans, the birthplace of jazz, has a longstanding relationship with music—music contributes to the city’s sense of history as well as the present-day atmosphere of the region. And with the ...

Essence, nearing half a century as a premier African-American fashion and lifestyle magazine, will once again transform downtown New Orleans into a hotbed of R&B, hip-hop and funk over the Fourth of ...

ESSENCE Festival’s nightly lineup runs from Cardi B on Friday to Brandy and Monica on Saturday, then Babyface and Public Enemy on Sunday.

Aretha Franklin has released dozens of albums since she was first recorded, along with her preacher father, on a 1956 gospel record. Between those dozens of albums, there are hundreds of songs; a ...