Solange Knowles, sister to Queen Bey and royalty in her own right, will perform a trio of songs from her masterful album A Seat At The Table at an intimate performance in Oakland this Friday. Knowles joined the bill for this week's performance at the last minute according to website EliteMusik, and will play after local acts including Fantastic Negrito, whose album The Last Days of Oakland was just nominated for a grammy in the Best Contemporary Blues Album category. For her part, Knowles scored her own Grammy nod, her first, with the track "Cranes in the Sky" in the Best R&B Performance category.
The Oakland performance will be held at the 400-person restaurant, bar, and venue Starline Social Club and is part of a series of performances nationally called GOODFest. That's held by GOOD Worldwide, the ten-year-old "global media brand and social impact company" and magazine founded by Al Gore III and college pal Ben Goldhirsh (son of the founder of Inc. Magazine) in a new partnership with Google that was announced in November. It's a series of five shows in five cities, each with a different cause and beneficiary.
Those include "Earth," and "Love," elsewhere while Solange and Fantastic Negrito will play for "Equality." Proceeds from the $35 general admissions tickets as well as additional donations will go to Oakland nonprofit Ella Baker Center for Human Rights, a group that works to reinvest in communities with the goal of ending mass-incarceration and criminalization. Proceeds will also go to Son of a Saint, a Louisiana program for boys with fathers who have passed away, been incarcerated, or are otherwise absent.
In the verbiage of GOOD, "GOODFest redefines “benefit” concert into a new social impact platform connecting artists and people around causes through music, culture, and technology." Google is using the opportunity to advertise its Pixel phone, and as the owner of YouTube, they'll also be livestreaming all the concerts there.
That's a relief, because although 50 more tickets will be released for the show at Starline Social Club every day, none remain today.
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