Thundercat, Ice Cube & George Clinton Highlight Afropunk 2016 – Review & Photos

Images & Words by: Jeremy Gordon

Afropunk 2016 :: 8.27 – 28.16 :: Commodore Perry Park :: Brooklyn, NY

Check out a full gallery of Jeremy’s photos after his review.

This past weekend saw the 12th edition of Afropunk come to Commodore Perry Park in Brooklyn. The festival’s three main stages mixed African-American genres as diverse as jazz (Thundercat), punk (Trash Talk), hip-hop (Ice Cube, Tyler The Creator), pop (CeeLo Green, Janelle Monae), spoken word (Saul Williams), funk (George Clinton) and EDM (Flying Lotus).

Highlights included Bad Brains, Fishbone, Living Colour and George Clinton all taking the Green Stage together in a superjam cover of Funkadelic’s “Cosmic Slop” as well as Ice Cube begging the crowd to forget about his Coors’ commercials and Disney movies and focus on his work in NWA and leading the main stage crowd in a rendition of “”F–k The Police.” There was also Saul Williams’ elegant spoken word poetry that lead him to climbing over the barricade and into the crowd to talk directly to the people.

Other top moments were Trash Talk bending the crowd to his will, leading to stage diving, mosh pits and general mayhem throughout the set as well as Flying Lotus and his wonderful spacey visuals projected onto a screen while he DJ’d an eclectic mixture of hip-hop, electronic and jazz.

Winners Of The Weekend

Odd Future: Between Tyler The Creator’s packed set on Saturday night, Earl Sweatshirt on Sunday, and The Internet, led by Syd Tha Kid closing the Gold Stage with a bang, the members of the collective rocked the festival.

The Fans: Multiple acts went directly into the crowd to connect with fans. Whether it was Angelo Moore of Fishbone and Trash Talk’s Lee Spielman crowd surfing, Angel Haze singing directly to a female fan and cradling her head or Skunk Anansie’s lead singer Skin dressed as a disco ball running amok, the performers bond with the audience could be felt throughout the weekend.

Losers Of The Weekend

TV On The Radio: Is anyone talking about their headlining set from Saturday night?

Wayfinding at Afropunk: There was much confusion throughout the weekend as concertgoers constantly asked each other where the Green, Gold and Red Stages were. Between this and the fact that the Green (main) Stage was delayed over an hour by the time Ice Cube was set to finish the event, it often became difficult to decide when and where an artist would go on.

Donald Trump: As Nikki Giovanni said from the main stage, “There is no one African language (and no one African people),” however the one thing that everyone could agree on was their anger and distaste of the Republican candidate.

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