Words by Fisayo Okare

Afropolitan Vibes, organized by Adebantu of the Bantu Collective, is easily Nigeria’s longest running monthly concert gig, with forty concerts spanning four years. In those four years, Afropolitan Vibes helped cement Freedom Park’s image as the premium place to seek out good live music, it’s stage hosting everyone from M.I to Brymo.

Ade Bantu and Abby Ogunsanya founded Afropolitan Vibes and it began as a monthly live concert before a two-day annual festival was added to their event line-up in December last year, 2016. Musicians of the Afrobeat, Afro-hip-hop, Afrofunk, Afropop or highlife origins perform at the event with the 13-piece Brotherhood Aliance Navigating Towards Unity (Bantu) collective live band, which Ade Bantu is also a part of.

But now the Afropolitan Vibes is evolving, firstly by moving house from Freedom Park in Lagos Island to Muri Okunola Park in Victoria Island. This is important for several reasons. Muri Okunola park is decidedly much bigger than Freedom Park’s venue and has largely been underutilized, by moving, Afropolitan Vibes is giving itself space to grow. Security at Muri Okunola is also much better than it is at Freedom Park, as is parking. And thirdly, it seems this new move is in some ways sanctioned by the state government which means better funding. And finally after increasing the tickets for the event to N1500, in 2016, they’re dropping it to 1k, which will definitely draw more people in.

NEW VENUE: Muri Okunola Park
NEW PRICE: N1000
SAME GREAT VIBES!
See you all JUNE 16th. #AfropolitanVibesMOpark pic.twitter.com/ZbFflE6Pcg

— Afropolitanvibes (@afropolitanvibe) May 18, 2017

This is another event to be added to your June going-ons for some experimental music. Their changes suggest that they are working on ways to improve the event to better suit both performers and the audience without losing the core values of the show. They are still providing a platform for niche artists to perform their way into the hearts of niche music lovers, just at a different location, time and price.

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