PHOTOS BY MA'ATOLOGY
HEY OUTSTAGRS!
IT'S THAT TIME AGAIN!
TIME TO GET ON STAGE!
It's been a minute since I chronicled events on my web-blog because of my duties producing my stage play The Goodlucks at the Hollywood Independent Theatre Festival in February and The Paintings of Lov-ve at the 2025 Hollywood Fringe Festival in June (along with covering and video reviewing stage plays between those months in the St Louis area for my Facebook page ).
Yet, during those times, I was able to attend three significant African American events as part of the media and as a spectator. Those events were: The 56th Annual NAACP Image Awards that were held Feb 22 at the Pasadena Civic Center, the 2025 BET Awards on June 9 at the Peacock Theater and parts of The Essence Festival of Culture held at The Ernest N. Morial Convention Center and the accompanied Essence Music Fest at The Caesar's Superdome July 5 and 6 (on the bday!) in New Orleans.
Below are pics from and a brief recap of those three events!
On Feb 21, I had gone to the NAACP Image Awards Lounge at the JW Marriott Hotel in Los Angeles to pick up my tickets to the Image Awards. There, I mixed and mingled with some of the media who were there to cover the awards and producers of the event! At the lounge, they also had after parties for each night leading up to the Image Awards for celebrities and VIP people to network (The lamb chops were Heavenly! LOL)
On Feb. 22, I picked up my ticket to the live show at the Pasadena Theater near the VIP area. Where I was standing, I could still see the rising smoke from the Pasadena Fires that happened in late January. It was a very eerie sight to see that, but as they say the show must go on.
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As a media person, it was good to just be a spectator. Pictured is myself with the illustrious program for the event.
Here is a photo of where I started in the balcony area, but I was able to maneuver my way down to the lower left orchestra area just when Ledisi was about to sing a tribute to the people affected by the Altadena and Pasadena Fires.
After the Image Awards, I attended the afterparty, produced by Reganald Hudlin, that was held next door from the Civic Center. There, they had a televised special concert as a fundraiser for the victims of the fires.
On June 5, I was able to attend some of the BET Experience events prior to the awards ceremony on June 9. Pictured is myself in front of a bar area at the Waymaker's Men's Conference that was held at The Beehive by Solo Impact.
The Men's Summit brought out various male celebrities to speak to youth on various subjects such as men's health, fitness, religion and making positive choices. The panel I attended had panelists Michael Jai White, Skyh Black, Derek Luke, and David Banner.
One of the highlighted booth areas at the Convention Center was the Club Eden booth where stars from the show All The Queens Men (PICTURED Skyh Black greeting the packed crowd) greeted their fans as the dancers gave the audience a PG version of their dance routines--with their clothes on. The dancers also took photos with their fans afterwards. Mr. Black didn't dance, by the way. He blamed it on his bad knees. LOL
Then, on June 7, I checked in as a Seat Filler for one of the panel discussions that were held at The Los Angeles Convention Center.
Pictured is myself arriving for The 2025 BET Awards checking out the scene before entering with all the celebrities, VIPs and fashionistas and dapper dans heading to red carpet. It was talk from the BET Awards producers on whether they were cancelling the awards due to the Los Angeles protests by anti ICErs that were nearby downtown because of the ICE Raids that occurred days prior.
My seat was right behind the media area where the camera people were taping the show. I also got a moment to take a body shot of my outfit during the event in the lobby of the theatre. (Thanks to the security guy for taking the shot!)
This event, hosted by Kevin Hart, was more of a celebration of BET with it being 25 years of the award show highlighting such shows as 106 and Park and the Icon Awards going to Mariah Carey (who performed), Jamie Foxx, Kirk Franklin (who performed) and Snoop Dogg (who performed).
Next, was The Essence Festival!
Yours Truly in my cowboy hat ready to check out the Essence Music Fest at the Superdome on Saturday July 5 where acts like Buju Banton, 803 and Jill Scott performed.
It was reports that the Friday show with Lauryn Hill was not packed, but much to my experience, on Saturday, it was beyond packed. My seat was lower stage left and I was able to see everything going on as far as the attendees.
Pictured is myself in front of The Essence Film Festival area where various independent films from the Black Experience were highlighted and awarded for the directors of some of the films.
The ever popular Beauty Con area of Essence Fest was the highlight where hundreds of people stood in line to receive freebies of beauty products. I stood in one line and various samples were being handed to me without my even trying to get samples! LOL. The overall experience at the Convention Center was quite roomy and spaced out for attendees to walk around. It was a long carpeted walkway at the entrance to the end of the center and on the sides were the local vendors and various panel/stage areas where celebrities, politicians and business people talked about various topics. There were a plethora of food venues as well (The crawfish balls were delish!). And, yes, the controversial Target booth was there and was packed with people.
Later on that day, I was near the VIP area and was able to check out the last music fest on Sunday where I was able to check out Muni Long Dougie Fresh (with surprise guest Slick Rick), The Waiting To Exhale tribute from the soundtrack with Chant Moore, KeKe Palmer, and Yolanda Adams, and the Tribute to Quincy Jones led by Jermaine Dupri who dee-jayed and educated many on some of Quincy's produced songs. He also brought out to the stage the contemporaries of his songs including SWV and Al B Sure leading the Secret Garden Tribute with Tyrese and Robin Thicke. Besides the sound issues, the lineup of acts were entertaining.
I wanted to check out the last performance of Master P and his crew and finale act Boyz II Men, but, I left the Superdome to attend an after party where DJ Nice held a Club Quarantine After Dark at The Fillmore.
Before I left New Orleans back to St Louis on Monday July 7, I took a drive on Bourbon Street to see how it looks in the day time sans Mardis Gras time.
BELOW ARE SOME OF THOSE PICS:
Well, OUTSTAGRS, that was my journalistic journey of my event travels.
UNTIL THE NEXT STAGING!
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