Free food, free Lipton Iced Tea, and free entertainment by legends MC Lyte and T-Pain! If you weren’t at the Fam Fest this past weekend, here’s a recap.
To start off, when this opportunity presented itself, our operations manager, Darius McDonald, enrolled The Nashville Black Market into the Lipton USA contest, and we won!! After numerous phone calls between Lipton and its counterparts, the Fam Fest, hosted in Nashville, came to life.
This community block party hosted over 1,000 community members, provided free food from Strikeout Wingz, Slim & Husky, Smokeboss Soul & BBQ, and Mama K’s Rumcakes. In addition, there were plenty of games and activities for children including Cornhole, Jumbo Connect Four, Jenga, blow up basketball hoops, and face paint. Attendees were also gifted free merch ranging from graphic t-shirts, bucket hats, fanny packs, and bracelets.
Local artists were invited to perform at the Fam Fest to showcase their music and talent. The roster included Dj Benjo Rich, Mikefloss with Dj Truestarr & Savvy, The Shindellas, and Daisha McBride with Sci-fy, all coming to the stage with some heat!
We even had live painting from the brilliant artist Meg Pie.
Once local artists warmed up the stage, MC Lyte took us back to the 70’s, hitting every genre of music up until present day. With such a diverse crowd, everyone was able to jam!
Yes, Nappy Boy himself was here in Nashville performing several of his hit songs. T-Pain performed Bartender, Blame It, I’m Sprung, Buy You a Drank, I’m N Luv, and the playlist literally goes on. He also expressed his support of Black businesses.
“I wake up and this is all I do. I support Black businesses.” T-Pain continues by saying, “I go to different websites and I check to see who’s making a difference and who’s actually doing dope [things] in the neighborhood…. I go on these sites and invest. I do it anonymously because I don’t want nobody thinking I’m doing this for clout. I just really love to see our Black businesses really step up.”
We are beyond grateful to have been the recipient of the Lipton USA grant and thankful to have shared the Fam Fest with our community. Thank you Nashville for the continuous love and support. Without you, we couldn’t support Black businesses or our community at the magnitude we do.
A special shout out to the community sponsors Corner to Corner, BZ Creative, National Museum of African American Music, and The Nashville Black Market.
We also want to thank the Fam Fest staff and our dedicated team at The Nashville Black Market for amazing teamwork and dedication.
