Celebrate Black joy, culture, and resistance at CCCADI’s 7th Annual Afribembé Festival on Sunday, August 10, from 4–6 PM at Harlem Week’s main stage at Grant’s Tomb. This year’s theme, “Black Constellation: Mapping Our Joy, Dreams, and Liberation,” invites the Diaspora to gather to celebrate legacy, imagination, and Afrofuturism. From ancestral rhythms to future-facing sounds, Afribembé is a portal connecting memory to future vision, featuring live music, performances, and cultural traditions alongside the vibrant Ọjà Marketplace and Family Village. Free and open to all, and hosted by award-winning artist Michael Manswell.
FREE - Registration not required.
For Harlem Week’s Full Schedule of Activities Visit:
https://harlemweek.com/
AFRIBEMBÉ TAKES THE STAGE AT HARLEM WEEK!
The Afribembé Festival is CCCADI’s annual Pan-African cultural celebration honoring the music, art, and traditions of the global African Diaspora. Inspired by El Festival de Santiago Apóstol en El Barrio, the beloved Loiza Festival that brought Afro-Puerto Rican heritage to East Harlem for over 50 years, Afribembé continues that legacy with a diasporic lens. Presented each summer during August, the festival features live performances, dance, and community rituals that center joy, resistance, and cultural memory. Its name reflects its spirit: “Afri”, for Africa, and “Bembé,” a word used across the Diaspora for gatherings filled with rhythm, connection, and celebration. Now in its seventh year, Afribembé transforms public space into a vibrant stage for Black and Brown excellence.
ABOUT
HARLEM
WEEK
HARLEM WEEK began in the summer of 1974 as a “one-time only,” one-day event (HARLEM DAY) with the huge objective of creating a much-needed “positive vibe” and pulling the greater Harlem community’s residents, businesses, religious, educational, arts and cultural institutions out of the most severe economic and social doldrums that New York City and the nation had faced in generations.
Utilizing the well-known reputation of the 1st Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s and 1930s, HARLEM DAY was decreed “THE BEGINNING OF THE SECOND HARLEM RENAISSANCE” by the legendary Ossie Davis, who said the day “provided a much-needed spiritual boost” for the entirety of Harlem.
That “spiritual boost” will continue through HARLEM WEEK 2025’s conferences, sporting events, cultural events and festivities, offering multiple positive benefits for Harlem, New York City and the “Harlems of the World.”
ARTISTS
AFRIBEMBÉ
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Loboko is a Congolese dance band based in New York City led by Yohni Loboko (Yohni Djungu-Sungu) a virtuosic guitarist, singer and multi-instrumentalist from the Democratic Republic of Congo. Yohni has performed with legends of Congolese music Fally Ipupa, Soukous Stars and Zaiko Langa Langa. He founded Loboko in 2019 along with drummer, DJ and journalist Morgan Greenstreet, with additional support from multi-instrumentalist and producer Nikhil P. Yerawadekar. Loboko’s unique style draws on classic Congolese rumba and soukous, Baluba and Bakongo traditional music, and a heavy dose of contemporary seben delivered in a punchy, small-band format. In 2023, Loboko released the vinyl '45 "Kanyunyi / Ekenge" with the acclaimed Brooklyn label Names You Can Trust, featuring special guest Ngouma Lokito, veteran bassist with iconic acts such as Soukous Stars, Tshala Muana and Pépé Kallé.
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Andoche Loubaki began his dance career in Brazzaville, Congo in 1998, with the choreographer Louis Causete. Two years later he joined the percussion group Toubillon as a drummer and learned to play the Ngoma. In 2013 Andoche started working with ballet Ngoma Za Kongo and went on tour in Gabon, Senegal, Libya and Malta. Ballet Ngoma Za Kongo, meaning "Drums of the Kongo," was invited by Africa Mondo Productions to tour the United States to bring different traditions and sounds from different regions of Congo. Andoche continues to share music and dance of the Congo with his performing company called Mfouambila which means groove.
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Michael Manswell-Dancer, Singer, Choreographer, Teaching Artist, Artistic Director, Orisha devotee He studied music at Brooklyn College and has toured Europe, the UK, the Caribbean, Central America, and Africa. He studied dance at the Trinidad Dance Theater, worked with Geoffrey Holder and the powerful Cheryl Byron. Mr. Manswell is the Artistic Director of Something Positive, Inc. and performs, and presents lectures and workshops in dance, music, and traditional religious practice both nationally and internationally with the company. He has worked closely with the Caribbean Cultural Center African Diaspora Institute (CCCADI)& the Interfaith Center in their programs. Mr. Manswell was named one of “Brooklyn's Black Men of Distinction 2000” and one of “Brooklyn's Black Dance Kings 2010” and is NYSCA/NYFA Fellow 2022(Choreography). He is currently a Lecturer in Dance at Lehman College (CUNY and teaches for Something Positive, CCCADI, & Abundance Arts Academy.
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After many years of recording and touring with Underground System and the FELA! band, Lollise now shares her own bold Afro-futurist pop sound, rich with layers of kinetic, danceable percussion and gentle waves of ambient noise. Lollise is a multi-disciplinary artist from Francistown, Botswana, based in NYC. Using sound, color and movement, Lollise tells stories in real and imagined worlds that are multidimensional and nuanced, historical and futuristic. She performs with a potent energy and commitment to the music, in body and in spirit.
Lollise emigrated to the US to study chemistry; after college she worked in a spinal cord injury lab in Philadelphia, left science to become a handbag designer in New York, and then joined a band. While refining her craft on tour with other projects in Europe, Nigeria and the US, she began writing her own music, developing her vision and voice.
She released her debut singles with captivating DIY music videos during the lockdown of 2020, then released two EPs – Looking At You (2020) and Unborn (2022) – before completing her debut full-length I hit the water, released September 2024 with Switch Hit Records. She also co-wrote and featured on the Delasi song “Learn from Adversity” (Brownswood Recordings, 2024).
Lollise creates hybrid songs for this moment, taking influence from the music she grew up with – Setswana and Kalanga folk songs, '80s and '90s South African electronic bubblegum and kwaito, Congolese soukous and Zimbabwean sungura – and the music she has been exposed to in New York, including Afrobeat, new wave, and art-pop.
Lollise has performed extensively in New York, from DIY community spaces to arts institutions including BRIC Celebrate Brooklyn, Public Records, BAM, Pioneer Works, Brooklyn Museum, Little Island Festival, Elsewhere and Symphony Space. Her music has been featured on Hearing Things, Pop Matters, KEXP, Rolling Stone, Bandcamp Radio, Bandcamp Daily, Okay Africa,and New Sounds with John Schaefer on WNYC radio.
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NEFER, led by Toyin Sogunro, is a collective of visionary movement artists dedicated to honoring ancestral legacy through dance, ritual, and storytelling. NEFER weaves street, spiritual, and Afro-diasporic practices into ceremonial performance experiences that heal, ignite, and celebrate.
VENDORS
If you are interested in joining the festivities as a vendor, please visit:
AFRIBEMBÉ
The word Bembé is an African word carried throughout the Diaspora with various meanings. From drumming, to rhythm, to party, we utilize the word Bembé as one of terms that connects our Diaspora together in music, joy and community.
This event is rain or shine. Please note all events are subject to change.
AFRIBEMBÉ is made possible by:
New York City Department of Cultural Affairs - Coalition for Theaters of Color, the New York City Council, Ford Foundation, Gilman Foundation, Mellon Foundation, and the Open Society Foundations.