From The Ramparts

Phila Black Heritage Music Festival & Soul Patrol Convention

Philadelphia Black Heritage Music Festival & Soul Patrol Convention

This week promises to be a very rewarding one for music lovers and folks who enjoy a good time. Beginning Thursday May 24 through Sunday May 27th in Clark Park located at 43rd and Baltimore Avenues in Philadelphia the 2007 Black Heritage Festival and Soul Patrol Convention will offer four days of free activities for the whole family, free concerts, a free movie festival, pertinent and relevant panel discussions on the state of Black Music, Black Culture and Black Radio plus a shake ‘em on down cabaret where many of the performers will meet and mingle with the party crowd. All the concerts and fun activities for children and families will be held in Clark Park from 12 Noon until 8 PM. The film festival and cabaret will be held at the Enterprise Center located at 46th and Market Streets. Mark Gains the founder of the Philadelphia Heritage Festival a grass roots five year old annual community event has teamed with Bob Davis of Soul Patrol an Internet based Black music preservation organization, Internet radio station and interactive community with over 50,000 members. The concerts will feature a cross section of Jazz, Blues, Old School Soul, R&B and Funk by artists like Jimmy Caster, Mandrill and twenty-five others.
For young people there will be Double Dutch contests, side walk chalk contests, face painting, African story telling, creativity over crime workshops (crime prevention), African drumming and much more. For music lovers there will be free concerts featuring some of the vintage artists, new and emerging independent artists across the spectrum of Black music. Mark Gains oriented the Heritage Festival around children and the community has supported the concept for the past four years. This year promises to be even bigger with the addition of the Soul Patrol Convention. Bob Davis is excited about coming to Philadelphia. The Soul Patrol has had national conventions in past years but this is the first time they’ve come to Philadelphia. “This gives us an opportunity to bring great Black music from the ancient to the future from Online to offline to make it real for younger people in the city of Philadelphia to experience Black culture that they don’t get to see and hear everyday, because there really was Black culture before the advent of BET MTV etc and there will continue to be Black culture going forward.
Everything is free except for the cabaret, the film festival which takes place at the Enterprise Center on Friday the 25th is free the concerts in Clark Park from 12 Noon to 6 PM are free and the panel discussions the Black Music Town Hall is free also.” Stated Davis. Gains and Davis partnered to give the Festival an added boost of free concerts featuring named and future talent from a wide genre of Black music. Davis a child of the 60's and 70's, envisions the Heritage Festival’s out-door concert as a “Black Woodstock”. Gaines has been producing the Heritage Festival for five years as a way to give back to the community. He works for a local charter school and created an after school art program called Creative Kids and started doing festivals to expand young people’s exposure to the arts.
“It’s so important to have this event dealing with the arts in general, for example there is an exhibit that’s here in Philadelphia King Tut, our children don’t even realize that that links back to their history and who they are. This is how important visuals are, and how important art is to one’s culture and heritage. So I took it upon myself to create this Heritage Festival to celebrate who we are. This is what this festival is all about and this is what Creative Kids is all about.” Shared Gaines.
Vending opportunities are still available for more information and a complete Festival and event schedule go to www.SoulPatrol.com Or contact Mark Gains at (267) 693-8191 or Bob Davis at (609) 351- 0154.
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posted by Junious Ricardo Stanton @ 10:29 AM