I attended the annual Afropunk Festival yesterday. Last year’s edition was canceled thanks to Hurricane Irene and I haven’t gone since 2009, when the festival was held in the parking lot across from BAM. The festival has gotten bigger and better and has outgrown the parking lot space so it was moved to the giant park by the Brooklyn Navy Yard.
I was on assignment to take portraits of some of the interesting outfits that were worn by concertgoers (and thankfully people did not disappoint me) but by the end of the day on Saturday, I ended up shooting performances by Spank Rock, Das Racist and Erykah Badu since I love all of these artists.
The guys of Das Racist were funny and entertaining as usual plus brought out special guests Meyhem Lauren and Despot. So thankful the dudes performed two of my favorite DR tracks (“Rooftop” and “Hugo Chavez” back to back). But of course, that kept me at the Red stage longer than I planned on being there (I had a feeling Erykah would be packed so I wanted to get over there a bit early). No regrets though. Also, I agree with Himanshu’s tweet about the other day 1,000%. Shout out to New York Undercover!
The photo pit for Erykah was crowded as hell but I’m thankful I made it in and was able to take some photos of her before quickly fleeing it. Especially since the gold chain she wore on her hip was made by someone I know. I saw Ms. Badu rocking it and knew it was a Nakimuli design.
I return for the rest of Afropunk today in a couple of hours and very much looking forward to it.
Oh, the photos above are a few of my favorites from yesterday (Saturday, August 25, 2012) at Commodore Barry Park. Check out the Afropunk 2012 photo set on Flickr here.
