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Cincinnati-Music-Fest-VIBE-1565732582
Stacy-Ann Ellis

Cincinnati Music Festival Showcases The Breadth Of Black Community Building

August 20, 2019 - 12:00 pm by Stacy-Ann Ellis TWITTER

"Jazz Fest" in the Queen City is a satisfying slice of black entertainment, excellence, and kinship.

It’s 2 p.m. on a balmy July Friday and, for a rare moment during a weekend that promises to be anything but still, Cincinnati’s Fountain Square feels quiet. A bronze statue with water free-falling from its palms marks the center of the city’s Downtown meeting place, and around the fountain’s edge, a smattering of passersby are sitting down to rest. Within the rest of the square, colorful booths manned by brown faces decorate the periphery. Tables and hangers and mannequins boast crafts both handmade and imported: skirts, dresses and crinkled fans made from ethnic prints, life-size framed artwork, shimmering jewelry, (possibly) designer handbags and bedazzled graphic tees boasting Sankofa symbols and phrases like “Thick Thighs Save Lives” and “Black 365.” These vendors are a blend of native Ohioans and those from other U.S. cities who can’t help but flock to Cincinnati during one of the area’s most festive times of the year.

Consider this the calm before the storm. By this same time tomorrow, the square will be teeming with activity orchestrated by Cincinnati USA Convention & Visitors Bureau’s Vibe Cincinnati platform. The hum of gentle chatter will be replaced by the boom of music from a stage occupied by community performers, and crowds will gather in front of it to film the music or two-step to it with impromptu dance partners. Those not keen on the heat will seek refuge from the sun beneath the shade of a table umbrella, or line-up up at the plethora of food trunks for some nourishment. And then at night, the masses will retreat to the seats of Paul Brown Stadium to partake in the festival that has served as a magnet for the black community for over half a century.

When you think of the bulk of festival season mainstays—Coachella, Bonnaroo, Lollapalooza—a low-key city like Cincinnati may not come to mind. But perhaps that’s because for 57 years, Cincinnati Music Festival, presented by P&G, has remained one of the Midwest’s best kept secrets. The longstanding festival, dubbed the largest urban music festival in the country, is molded for R&B, soul and funk lovers, many of whom travel from the likes of Columbus, Cleveland, Detroit, Pennsylvania, Milwaukee, Chicago, Texas, California, and Atlanta to experience it firsthand. (This year’s lineup included Maxwell, Mary J. Blige, Frankie Beverly & Maze, Earth, Wind & Fire, Tamia, the men of New Edition and more.)

“I am a Cincinnati homegrown girl and I think it’s just amazing that people from out of town come to Cincinnati for the music festival, just to show how Cincinnati can be lit and can be comparable to other big cities,” says Morgan A. Owens, CEO of the MAO Brands. She’s not the only Cincy native proud of the city’s yearly time in the spotlight.

“It’s a good time to be in Cincinnati,” Tim’m West, recording artist and Cincy Black Pride organizer, says. “When I first moved here everyone was like, ‘why did you move back here?’ Now it’s starting to being like, ‘oh,’ that’s not the default. ‘Oh, it’s a good time to be in Cincinnati,’ is what people are saying.”

Bertie Ray III, owner of Switch Lighting & Design, the venue hosting the weekend’s Cincinnati Black Pride Day Party, agrees. “It’s overwhelming. You’re talking about 80,000 people from throughout the Midwest. From Chicago, Detroit, Cleveland, it’s just folk from everywhere. So what’s wonderful to see with this many people in the city, is new fresh energy comes to the city,” the Washington, D.C. native says. “But also over the last three or four years, Cincinnati has hosted any number of conventions within the African-American community. The NAACP convention, the [Sigma Pi Phi Fraternity] Boule Convention, the Deltas were here, the Links were here, so it’s a destination for black America.”

And although the event’s website reads “Cincinnati Music Festival,” no one in town will call it that. To everyone on the ground, both rooted and visiting, it’s simply Jazz Fest. “That’s what it was originally branded as,” Will Jones, the Marketing and Communications Manager at the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center, says, referring to the event’s origins as the Ohio Valley Jazz Festival. “It started in 1962 and it’s been here for years outside of, I believe, 2001 through 2004—those three years they had it in Detroit. But we just call it Jazz Fest because that’s what we know it as.”

After spending a weekend in Downtown Cincinnati sampling generous helpings of local eats, brushing up on black history at the Freedom Center, and swaying to the beat of deeply-rooted music each night, it’s clear that the weekend is about more than surface level entertainment like other music festivals. The magic of Jazz Fest is seeing how the different pockets of Cincinnati’s black population come together to build each other up, whether it’s in spirit, with financial support—“We bring in millions and millions of dollars, and it just goes to show the power of the black dollar. It’s a beautiful thing to see our community support black business owners,” Owens says—or in sheer fun.

“We do have a lot to offer, you just have to seek out the opportunity just like everywhere else," she continues. “It might not be as prominent as a New York or a Chicago or an L.A. or a Miami, but Cincinnati holds it down.”

Here, Jazz Festival frequenters share their favorite memories over the years and offer a glimpse of what makes the event, and their involvement in it, so special for Cincinnati.

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Larry & Maurice, Art Vendors at Fountain Square

Larry D., a Delaware-based entrepreneur vends at Jazz Fest as well as other U.S. events and festivals such as Essence Festival. "Most people are from out of town from Chicago, Texas, California, they come from all over. We get the chance to meet a lot of different people and present different art that they've never seen before." Maurice, a Milwaukee native, has been frequenting CMF for approximately a decade. "It’s a very good feeling once the year here in Cincinnati. We have the Jazz Festival and a couple other festivals and it's always exciting, exuberating to see people of color, black, brown, white share common space together. I love it, I absolutely love it."

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A host of vendors lined the entirety of Cincinnati's Fountain Square all weekend long.

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Tim’M. West, Black Pride Organizer

"I knew there were a lot of black LGBT people in Cincinnati because it was just a large black population here, so I was like why aren’t we seeing that?" West says of the formation of Cincinnati Black Pride and its Jazz Fest party. "We pull from Indianapolis, Columbus. Columbus doesn’t have black pride, Dayton does have a black pride, so a lot of those cities will come here because they get to have those experiences that affirm both their blackness and their LGBT [identity]."

Jazz Fest is not only a celebration of black music, but also a celebration of the black people the inspire, create and enjoy it.
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Jazz Fest is not only a celebration of black music, but also a celebration of the black people the inspire, create and enjoy it.

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Matt Cuff, Owner of Just Q-ing Food Truck & Catering Business

Matt Cuff is originally from Cleveland, almost four hours away from Cincy on the highway, and he built up his culinary business in the Carolinas before coming back home to Ohio. His Cincy-based Just Q'In BBQ restaurant, food truck, and catering biz is a for-profit social enterprise that hires, develops, and trains people with barriers to employment. Just Q'In employees eventually transition from the program to higher-paying jobs. There's a gratifying experience in bringing a slice of his passion to the Queen City for the big weekend. "Jazz Fest is a big deal for us. This part of Jazz Fest Cincy Soul gives a lot of African-American businesses just a chance to showcase who they are and what they do," he says, noting that this year is his third vending. "Everybody—people like me who are professionals in restaurants all the way up to the mom and pop catering business—comes in and gets the same experience as everybody else."

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Just Q'in BBQ food truck was one of many parked in Fountain Square and along the walk to Paul Brown Stadium for the evening festivities.

"The most rewarding thing about running a business is it having an impact on people's lives. That's why I'm in it, that's why we do it. We get a chance to impact not only peoples' lives but African-American lives, not only African-American lives but a majority of this crowd is not from here," Cuff says, nodding to the other state residents that flock to Ohio each July. Through his Just Q'in BBQ business, he gets to share his gifts with them. "We get to touch each and everyone one of them with our food. That's cool."
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Morgan A. Owens, CEO of the MAO Brand

For local entrepreneur Morgan A. Owens, Cincinnati Music Festival was always a part of her life. “It’s just always been a part of my childhood growing up,” she says. “My earliest memory would be high school, but I’ve been going for well over close to 20 years. It’s just a Cincinnati staple and I usually go with my family, I’ve gone with friends. Relationships have come and gone and the Cincinnati Music Festival has always been there.” In fact, she compares the gathering to an official family reunion. “That weekend is just so full of black magic, a real sense of community and just happiness,” she says. “Personally, I’ve seen the black community come together and dance together, have fun and just kick it like one big block party or family reunion.”
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The Empow(HER) Panel was one of many new programming initiatives Vibe Cincinnati put in place to engage the black community.

"Vibe Cincinnati has been doing a great job over the past couple of years generating activities around the festival," Owens says. "This year was really the first year that there were so many activities geared towards my demographic, as far as entrepreneurs and women in business, so this is really the first year that I’ve actually participated in activities outside of the music festival itself."
A dancing couple grooves to the free sounds of the Fountain Square stage.
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A dancing couple grooves to the free sounds of the Fountain Square stage.

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Bertie Ray III, owner of Switch Lighting & Design

“I have gone Jazz Fest pretty much every year since we’ve moved to Cincinnati,” says Ray, who originally hails from Washington, D.C. “My best Jazz Fest memory—and I was with my wife because she always takes me—I love Jill Scott, and I just had just a great time. I’m an Anita Baker fan, a Jill Scott fan, of course, you can’t beat Frankie Beverly & Maze, and just seeing the whole crowd just jam to that.”
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Song and dance were pivotal parts of Vibe Cincinnati's programming surrounding Cincinnati Music Festival.

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Steve L., Clothing Vendor at Fountain Square

Steve L., a vendor at Fountain Square, has been coming to Cincinnati Music Festival for over 25 years. The Atlanta native first came in 1989 and aside from the potential profits, keeps coming back for the sense of ease that comes with the weekend-long festivities. “A lot of time when you’re dealing with an older crowd, there’s not shootings and all of that. I’m serious, I’m just keeping it 100,” he says. “I’ve never came to one of these and somebody got killed or something like that, which is a good thing.”

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