Questlove’s Oscar Winning Summer of Soul Inspires New Harlem Festival of Culture

Questlove’s Oscar-winning documentary Summer of Soul has inspired the launch of the Harlem Festival of Culture — a reimagining of 1969’s Harlem Cultural Festival.

The Harlem Culture Festival was the setting for Questlove’s film, which aired unseen footage from the largely forgotten event.

Tapes of the festival were stored in a basement for roughly 50 years until film archivist Joe Lauro digitized the footage in 2004 — unearthing the content that would later become Summer of Soul. 

Now, an annual reimagining of the festival will debut during the summer of 2023 at Marcus Garvey Park, where the original event occurred.

Musa Jackson, editor in chief of Ambassador Digital Magazine, founded The Harlem Festival of Culture (HFC) with Nikoa Evans and Yvonne McNair.

Jackson, a Harlem native, appeared in Questlove’s film, as he attended the original festival when he was just five years old.

“Being rooted, watered, and grown in this village of Harlem, I believe HFC is our moment to show the world the vibrancy of today’s Harlem — the music, the food, the look, all of it!” he said in a statement accompanying the press release. “The original event was truly a once-in-a-lifetime experience, one that I will never forget.”

“With this initiative, we want to create something that evokes that same sense of pride in our community that I felt on that special day in 1969,” he continued. “We want to authentically encapsulate the full scope: the energy, the music, the culture. We want people to understand that this festival is being built by the people who are from, live and work in this community.”

Summer of Soul executive producer Joseph Patel also commented on the new festival, saying, “One of the things we hoped would happen with Summer of Soul is that it would open the door for other stories to be told, in all their forms, especially by people from Harlem.

“I couldn’t think of a better person to charge through than Musa, whose devoted roots in the community make him the perfect person to represent for Harlem,” Patel added.

While the festival is set to debut next summer, HFC organizers have set up events throughout New York City leading up to the big day.

HFC, for example, is hosting an “A Harlem Jones” open mic night at the Museum of the City of New York on April 15, along with a June 19 screening of Summer of Soul, and more.