Festival 411: Broccoli City Returns With ‘Biggest Celebration Of Black Culture & Change’

– Broccoli City
Hussle In The House: The late, great Nipsey Hussle performs at the sixth annual Broccoli City Festival at Washington D.C.’s RFK Stadium on April 29, 2018, the same year Live Nation partnered with Live Nation Urban.

Now in its 10th year, Broccoli City Festival is billing its 2022 iteration as the “Biggest Celebration of Black Culture & Change.” The May 7-8 bill at Washington D.C.’s RFK Stadium is headlined by two rising female stars, Ari Lennox and Summer Walker, along with top acts like Jeezy, Wale, 21 Savage and Larry June rounding out the bill, but that’s just the tip of the broccoli crown. This year the fest also includes BLK Change Weekend running May 6-8, with community building events like Broccoli Con, a job fair, the Broccoli City 5k run and an all-night party.

Pollstar caught up with Broccoli City Festival co-founder Jermon Williams, who helped break down this year’s multi-faceted events, their Live Nation Urban partnership and what Broccoli City means.

Pollstar: You’re calling Broccoli City Fest 2022 the biggest celebration of Black culture and change, what does that mean?
Jermon Williams: The week of the festival, we’re having BLK Change Weekend that is about changing and building sustainable Black communities. Part of that is changing behaviors, changing outlooks, getting folks involved through engagement. The main thing is doing what we can with what we have and encouraging people. From volunteerism, coming out and doing clean ups, food drives, urban gardening and doing everything we can to beautify Black communities in D.C. and especially in areas harder hit by economic distress.

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Is that at RFK Stadium, too?

No. Broccoli Con is at The Gathering Spot, which is a Black-owned shared space, sort of like a WeWork, and they really push Black culture. It’s on I Street in downtown D.C. It’ll be in-person and digital.

Is that a separate ticket?

Broccoli Con is free. You don’t have to attend the festival to go to Broccoli Con. It’s first-come, first-serve and our way of giving back and to set folks up to receive information that they may want to hear or take part in. Each forum is set up in a way that we’re able to tackle issues like environmental injustice, nutrition and food, how to fund your Black business, politics, we provide a variety of topics folks can choose from.

Is there also a job fair?

Yes, Broccoli Con has multiple segments that cater to different types of people and professionals. So whether you’re an entrepreneur looking for capital, or someone who just needs an entry level or middle management job, you’ll have something there you can pursue. We just want to equip people with actionable things they can do and take when they leave.

And you’ve got a 5K race?

Yes. When we talk about building sustainable Black communities, health is one of the most important aspects. You can’t have a thriving community that’s unhealthy physically. The 5K is our way to encourage folks to get active and stay active. There’s low barrier of entry so we can invite families and all ages to take part and not feel intimidated.

Where’s it taking place?

That’ll be at Anacostia Park. We’ve been working with the Mayor’s office from day one and that relationship has strengthened and we’ve been able to do a lot more. Mayor Bowser has been a great partner.

– Broccoli City
Broccoli City founders Brandon McEachern, Darryl Perkins, Jermon Williams and Marcus Allen.

And what’s BC All Night?

It’s an art and music installation concept, it’ll happen overnight at an outdoor space at Union Market. We’ll have music, local talent, as well as visual artists, and different settings.

It’s great to see Ari Lennox and Summer Walker, two women, leading the bill.

Yes, yes, yes. That’s been something we wanted to do for a while, and it just so happened that things aligned perfectly. Ari and Summer both have two of the hottest albums right now, so it made complete sense. Ari’s from D.C., so it was perfect timing to make it happen. We’ve always wanted to have two Black women headline; we’re excited to do that.

And this is Broccoli City’s 10th anniversary?

Yes, its 10th, but eight technically, two we missed because of COVID.

How did Broccoli City start?

Brandon McEachern and Marcus Allen founded Broccoli City as an organic T-shirt company back in ‘07, ‘08. They’re both from Greensboro, N.C., and Broccoli City is an urban nickname for Greensboro. I got involved toward the end of ‘08. We started to brand things around Earth Day and being eco-friendly. We were the first Black urban brand to embrace eco-friendly clothing and sustainable messaging. We just continued to grow and scale, later becoming a blog and meeting our partner, Darryl Perkins. He was with the Hip Hop Caucus doing community events and urban gardening and things of that nature. We continued growing, doing events between L.A. and D.C. We did an Earth Day concert in 2010 in LA, which featured a very young Kendrick Lamar. He was the opening act. A lot of L.A. artists were there like Pak Div, Dom Kennedy. In 2012 we decided to do a festival with our namesake.

You partnered with Live Nation Urban in 2018, how’s that going?

It’s been amazing. They’re great. Shawn Gee is amazing. It’s been priceless to learn from Shawn and work with them. They respect us as an independent entity and as a true partner. We’ve learned so much about how to scale and make Broccoli City Fest the best we possibly can for attendees, because it’s all about them at the end of the day. They taught us how to actively listen and take note of the feedback that’s given. It’s been a great, great partnership. I can’t stress that enough.

What message do you have for young Black entrepreneurs who want to get involved in the festival or live music space?

Continue to do the work, use every resource at your disposal and network across. People start out trying to network up and it’s like, no, you need to tap into people who are just as hungry and just as passionate as you are. Bring them in and let them own what they’re doing for you and with you. That’s what we did. When we started to take off, we had built a collective of like-minded individuals who were just as hungry. They were marketers, PR folks, budding talent managers. There was something they did that we saw as incredibly valuable that could help us and in turn help them.