Africa Oyé, 2022

As many of you will remember, I’ve habitually attended the Africa Oyé free festival in Liverpool’s Sefton Park every June over many years. It hasn’t taken place for the last couple of years, for obvious reasons, but this year it’s back, back, back! In fact, this year marks 30 years since the very first Oyé. Massive respect to everyone involved over the years. 

I took hundreds of photos today and haven’t managed to edit them all yet but here are a selection. The main Blip shows UK/Ghanaian star Fuse ODG, www.theguardian.com/music/2019/mar/07/afrobeats-star-fuse-odg-i-love-myself-now-africa-has-done-that-for-me?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other who was a HUGE draw for the younger members of the audience, who joined in with all the lyrics, including to ‘No Daylight’ www.youtube.com/watch?v=RAyEokSOd5w, and generally went crazy for his energetic performance.

Today I also saw Blue Saint (born in the Democratic Republic of Congo and mostly raised in Liverpool), Newen Afrobeat (Chile), Kizaba (DR Congo), Diabel Cissokho (Senegal), and reggae legend Eek-A-Mouse (Jamaica). Check out the latter in his frock coat and powdered wig in the Extra photos! Radio 1 Xtra’s DJ Edu provided the tunes between the performances.