Nigerian megastar, Davido in preparation for his A.W.A.Y festival in Atlanta has disclosed his visions for the festival.
Davido shared his vision for the Are We African Yet? (A.W.A.Y) festival in an interview with Apple Music’s Zane Lowe.
He aims to create a festival that will last for years, providing a platform for African artists to perform and connect with their international fan base.
Davido sees the festival as an opportunity to showcase African culture on a global stage.
“So years ago it was the other way around where it’s like the same way we have people coming to Africa, which we love, investing, bringing their own culture over there. Having festivals, in the same way, we should do the same over here. And that’s why I’m having this festival that’s going to be coming every year-
I want to give [different artists] the opportunity to come every year, different times to come and perform. Because they have fans here and they don’t know. Because internet, all you have to do is just drop a song out on TikTok and it’s gone. Somebody a billion miles away, it could be their best song and you wouldn’t even know.
I feel like we have to own our culture too. We can’t wait for somebody to bring the idea and be like, “Yo, Afrobeats is growing.” Let’s go register for African Coachella or something like that. I’m like, “No, we got to do this ourselves because this is ours. So we got to own it.” Down the line if somebody wants to partner…
But the vision I have, I’m talking 10 years, 20 years down the line. The vision I have is to create it to be something that is for the culture, not particularly mine. I might be behind it, producing it, All of that. But it’s something I’m doing for the culture, which Atlanta definitely is going to have the first couple, but we’ve spoken about definitely moving it around because we are everywhere. So definitely I can see maybe LA. I can see Toronto, definitely. So we’re definitely going to move it around.”
Davido has had a successful 2023, as evidenced by his three nominations for the 2024 Grammy Awards.
The inaugural A.W.A.Y festival will be held on November 18, 2023, at the State Farm Arena in Atlanta, Georgia.
