2026 Essence Fest Was A Brand Recovery Year

After the weird melt down of prior Essence Ventures/Magazine head, Caroline Wanga, Essence spent its past year trying to prove its not the weird Black girl doing a slave interpretive dance for her dissertation in front of White constituents. Shit got weird. Like Billy Porter kissing feet weird and someone had to step in.

In spite of all the Baba Shakalaka Boom Boom she tried to sell on Black America, the Essence reps decided to entertain its next aging market, Gen Z and Millennials. This year focused on rebranding its identity back to Susan Taylor era of the 90s. You know that time when the modern Black women became cool and the least obnoxious? Finally taking a break from identity politics for White elections, someone decided to stop being the activist and return to the cool, self-reflecting, time of the unbothered.

The event was managed by Chief Curator, Teyana Taylor (just realized two Taylor’s), featuring 90’s nostalgia acts by the latest R&B artists, not named Beyonce. From earlier reports there wasn’t a large influx of revenue this year but, there was a large rebound of respect. The conversation about Essence fest reconnecting with non overly commercial, anti-white-lady focused politics, gave the audience a break. Lauryn Hill’s energy felt save enough to be punctual. The monopolizing ideologies of complaining about a world that commodifies seemed like a nice break for the women attendees and performers. Maybe because it wasn’t an election year but, the concept was clearly trying to recreate that cover with all the top Black female actresses on that 2000 cover (late 90’s technically). [Source]

Was there cringe moments discussed? Maybe but, there has to be a fine line between reseting identity and solidifying it. And if a bunch of Koreans showed up and did the same thing the same Black people would be whining about cultural appropriation. Showing up Black can’t always be picked apart, especially when being erased is still being debated. Beside is an AI Aaliyah that controversial over avoiding the 50-11 Art of Dialogue Aaliyah stories in your algorithm? So you can’t base the necessity of culture on an audience who waits on overly commercialized celebs to copy and paste, then wait 12 years to deem it culturally relevant.

Note: Essence Communications, is the parent company of Essence Magazine and the Essence Festival of Culture. In 2018, the publishing and event company was purchased by Richelieu Dennis, who launched Essence Ventures. While the company is back to Black after a stint with Time Inc, the brand of Black had faced criticism by some people who currently debate the what type of Blackness that fits into the current state of America. Understand, when Essence Magazine was created in the 70’s it was launched during a post Civil Right, Pro Black, Pan African era. Anything mama Africa was seen as the only brand of Black for YEARS. It’s why we have Black, Anti Muslim, Pro Christian MAGA supporters name Jamal with biracial kids named Akbar McGilcutty. Sh!t’s been confusing as hell.

Fast forward, when dudes got out of jail, suddenly they became pro America and anti anything Black, dark-skin avoidant, and misaligned with anything connecting to Africa. This dis-association, rooting in something deeper than lineage, created a weird confusion for Africans that started to assume the Africa cosplaying by Black America was a form of submission. Not seeing the deeper issue of it really being a form of submission to White immigrants claiming to be the real Americans for the past 75+ years. Now that Black people are collectively realizing they forwarded their citizenry to White and Brown immigrants, they want to be American again and that means throwing away the last 50 years of culture. A brand of culture Essence initially built its identity from, visual cues of Africa.

So while African Diaspora was the principal identity for Black people over 40 years, a lot of people who avoided anything Black, used this new fake pro America sentiment to challenge this African immigrant confusion of Pan African identity. Thus we ended up with Diaspora War fights over the Essence Fest in Creole land of Louisiana, who’s logo was an Egyptian monogram with braids. Now I’m confused.

With all thats going on in the world, its good that Black women left their degrees at home and hopefully had a reset to get back to what is important for them and not how they are important for others.