NEWS
Flying Lotus
Tim Saccenti*In celebration of Black History Month, New York’s Carnegie Hall will launch its 2022 Afrofuturism Festival on Saturday (Feb. 12) with a live, headlining performance from Grammy Award-winning rapper-producer, filmmaker and composer Flying Lotus.
With innovative festivities lined up through April 3, the citywide and multi-dimensional commemoration is complete with more than 80 live and virtual events — including visual arts and technology exhibitions, film screenings and panel discussions that will be presented by more than 70 partnering cultural institutions (including the iconic Apollo Theater, The Metropolitan Museum of Arts, The National Black Theatre and The Africa Center).
In the coming weeks, musical performances will be delivered by: Sun Ra Arkestra with Kelsey Lu and Moor Mother; Nicole Mitchell and Angel Bat Dawid; Chimurenga Renaissance and Fatoumata Diawara; the Carl Craig Synthesizer Ensemble and Theo Croker.
Billboard caught up with opening act Flying Lotus and Carnegie Hall’s esteemed director of festivals and special projects, Adriaan Fuchs (who hails from South Africa) just days before showtime. The pair opened up about the significance of Afrofuturism and the importance of the Afrofuturism Festival.
“With each of the festivals we do at Carnegie Hall, we rely on external advisors to provide us with the expertise in terms of artists we should be booking and partnering organizations that should be involved,” Fuchs explains. “We turned to a team of five incredible Afrofuturism advisors — Reynaldo Anderson, King James Britt, Louis Chude-Sokei, Sheree Renée Thomas, and Ytasha L. Womack — and they have been shaping this festival for the last two years.”
“Plans got derailed because of the pandemic,” he admits. “But we really wanted to include both legacy artists that have been at the forefront of Afrofuturism and the new torch bearers of the genre.”
For multi-hyphenate creative Flying Lotus, who’s set to direct his second feature film Ash later this year, Saturday night’s concert couldn’t arrive at a better time in his career: “With where my music is heading currently, this feels very appropriate.”
“[Carnegie Hall] is a different atmosphere for the things I’ve been doing and it’s an opportunity for me to move in a new direction musically that is fitting,” he continues. “I have so much music in my catalog that I couldn’t play at a normal music festival because people want to dance and party. With this, everyone will be sitting down, so it will fall into more of a cerebral experience.”
Of the more than 80 festival events, Fuchs notes he’s especially looking forward to the online Afrofuturist Writing discussion between award-winning authors Samuel R. Delany and Namwali Serpell, moderated by Smaran Dayal. Columbia University’s Italian Academy for Advanced Studies in America will host the occasion.
Also noteworthy: Brooklyn’s National Sawdust music venue will anchor an immersive listening experience of an unreleased album by late Jamaican singer and producer Lee “Scratch” Perry, known for his immense contributions to the development of dub music in the ‘70s. “That’s gonna be an amazing experience for followers of Lee,” says Fuchs. “With Afrofuturism being so multidisciplinary and highly creative, we wanted to have a range of offerings that touch on everything from music to literacy, fashion and technology.”
“It’s gonna be fun… I’m there to explore music and have a good time,” Flying Lotus affirms, also joking, “The only thing that’s kind of tricky is it’s my first time really outside in a while. I’ve just been hanging out with my dog, so to be thrust in front of a whole bunch of people will be quite a jarring experience. But I’ll get a kick out of it.”
Teasing his special set, Lotus says he’s most excited to collaborate onstage with instrumentalists Miguel Atwood-Ferguson and Brandee Younger, whom he describes as “two really amazing musicians who are gonna do things I have no idea [about]. The improvisation and things that can only happen in the moment are what I’m looking forward to the most.”
The filmmaker, who defines Afrofutirism as “the expression of concepts that are born in Blackness” says, “We’re just now starting to see Black people in mainstream science-fiction because for so long its’s been a mystery of where we belong in the future. They barely show us in space and it’s taken so long, but because of that, Afrofuturism exists. Thankfully, we’ve created our own future, universes and mythologies that are part of the culture.”
Fuchs underscores Flying Lotus’s sentiments, adding that, “[Historically], everything was done from a white perspective and through a white gaze excluding Black people as being central to the story. Afrofuturism represents imagining futures and alternate realities where race relations played out differently while linking back to Africa and the past. It’s that combination of storytelling, creativity, artistic expression and technology coming together.”
Ultimately, he says that “at Carnegie Hall, we want to take audiences on a journey. The festivals allow us to take a deep dive through musical presentations and other programming with cultural and academic institutions for New Yorkers and everyone. Afrofuturism is now part of the mainstream and we’re acknowledging it as an incredible cultural practice and movement.”
Learn more about the Afrofuturism Festival at Carnegie Hall’s official website.
NEWS
It has been just over seven months since Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce revealed their engagement through an Instagram post that quickly went viral.
Since that announcement, both stars have stayed extremely busy with their careers. Swift dropped her 15th No. 1 album on the Billboard 200, The Life of a Showgirl, in October, selling an impressive 4 million equivalent album units. Around the same time, Kelce confirmed he would return to the Kansas City Chiefs for his 14th NFL season earlier this month.
Even though they have both expressed excitement about organizing their wedding, their current focus remains on their professional commitments.
“I’m just doing the album thing now,” Swift shared during an October interview on The Graham Norton Show after Norton asked whether wedding preparations had started. “And then I think the wedding is after that.”
After Swift and Kelce made their first joint awards show appearance at the iHeartRadio Music Awards on March 26, curiosity about their wedding plans has started building again.
People close to the couple, often referred to as the Tayvis circle, have mostly stayed quiet about any confirmed plans. Kelce’s mother Donna Kelce declined to comment when approached by a photographer at LAX about whether she would help with the planning. “I’m just happy. I’m so happy for them,” she said.
At the same time, Swift’s future sister in law Kylie Kelce, who is married to Travis’ brother Jason, asked listeners on her Not Gonna Lie podcast on April 2 to stop asking for insider information. “Quit asking me and my mother in law [Donna] about upcoming nuptials,” she said directly to viewers. “Nobody’s f—ing telling you anything.” She continued by saying, “I don’t have any details. I have no details. I have none. Look at that. That’s how many details I have. None. None.”
While Donna and Kylie have chosen to stay private, a handful of people within the couple’s inner circle, including Taylor and Travis themselves, have occasionally shared small insights about the wedding.
Here is what has been revealed so far about the Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce wedding.
Swift is interested in having the ceremony in another location
During an interview on BBC Radio 1, host Greg James thanked Swift for supposedly inviting him to the celebration, joking that although he usually avoids destination weddings, he would gladly attend hers. When he asked where she might hold the event, Swift kept things mysterious, replying, “I’m going to let you know at a different time.”
The guest list could be very large
If you are hoping to receive an invitation to the Tayvis wedding, there might actually be a chance.
During an October 2025 appearance on The Graham Norton Show, Swift joked that Norton would eventually find out when he asked whether the wedding might take place in 2026. She clarified that she plans to invite him along with practically everyone she has spent time with.
“I know it’s going to be fun to plan because I think the only stressful weddings are the ones where you have a small amount, and people are on the bubble,” Swift said. “And you have to evaluate or assess your relationship with them to see if they should be there. I’m not going to do that.”
She added, “Anyone I’ve ever talked to.”
Watch the full clip below.
A live band will probably provide the music
It appears the couple is leaning toward live performers rather than a DJ.
On a September episode of the Kelce brothers’ New Heights podcast, guest Jimmy Fallon asked Travis whether they had begun thinking about wedding details.
“Are you gonna do DJ or band? Are you thinking about all this stuff?” Fallon asked.
Kelce answered by sharing their preference, saying, “Yeah, I think we’re live music kind of people, you know?”
Although he likely would not be the only performer, Swift hinted in an October interview with Hits Radio that her close friend and collaborator Ed Sheeran could perform during the celebration.
“It’s like, ‘Ed, if there’s a stage, you know that you’ll be on it,” Swift said. “He knows what people want and he wants to give people what they want.”
The wedding could happen before summer ends
Fans hoping for an autumn themed ceremony might be disappointed, as the couple may be considering a summer timeframe.
During a January 2025 episode of New Heights, recorded months before the engagement, Kelce explained why fall weddings can be difficult due to the football season.
“I actually don’t know people who have gotten married in the fall,” he said. “All the weddings I’ve been to, and all my friends do it in the summer.”
If they do move forward with a wedding this year, it may happen before the end of the summer. Kelce recently confirmed he would return to the Chiefs for another season, partly inspired by Swift’s dedication to her work. ESPN reporter Nate Taylor also mentioned that Kelce “plans to marry [Swift] before training camp,” which begins July 22. If they want to avoid conflicts with football, the ceremony would likely need to happen before that date.
Invitations may not have been sent yet
Even with speculation pointing toward a summer ceremony, no confirmed date has been publicly shared, and even people close to them say they are unsure.
In a September interview on SiriusXM’s Small Stage Series, Ed Sheeran said he had not yet received a save the date. He also mentioned that he found out about their engagement through Instagram just like everyone else.
“You didn’t even get a DM in advance?” host Andy Cohen asked.
“No,” Sheeran responded.
More recently, Kylie Kelce said during a January appearance on Today with Savannah Guthrie that she had no idea whether the wedding would happen this year.
“I’m not gonna lie,” Kylie admitted when discussing how little she knows about the plans.
Kylie also repeated that she has no inside information during an appearance on the podcast Conversations With Cam. “I would love to give you all the details. I don’t have them,” she said after host Cam Rogers asked what fans should expect from the wedding.
