Bitter Fight Between Harlem Festival of Culture Founders Goes Public In New Lawsuit

The Harlem Festival of Culture was supposed to be a celebration of music and coming together, inspired by the Academy Award-winning documentary Summer of Soul directed by Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson — but a recent lawsuit filed in New York paints a picture of an event plagued by in-fighting and mistrust between the event’s three founding members.

On Thursday (Sept. 8), two of the members of the Harlem Festival of Culture LLC — editor and activist Musa Jackson (who appeared in Summer of Soul) and culture and lifestyle entrepreneur Nikoa Evans filed suit against partner and co-founder Yvonne McNair, accusing her of mounting “a hostile takeover” of the festival, scheduled to take place July 28, 29 and 30 on Randall’s Island in New York.

McNair plans to fight the lawsuit, telling Billboard, “I have worked tirelessly over the past several years to bring the Harlem Festival of Culture to life. I am relying upon my legal team to guide this process and I will be in touch with factual updates in the future.”

The festival was to be hosted by MC Lyte and feature performances by Adam Blackstone, Eric Bellinger, Jozzy, MAJOR., Ma$e, Remy Ma, Ro James, Tink and Wyclef Jean — with a special concert series leading up to the festival to be held at Harlem’s famed Apollo Theater. The event was canceled hours before it was set to open on July 28 due to President Joe Biden’s heat advisory for the weekend, which was the first-ever national hazard alert for heat issued by the White House.

The lawsuit paints a picture of a festival in constant turmoil beginning in February of this year as McNair began courting sponsors for the event, booking talent and contracting production companies to produce it. Jackson and Evans accuse McNair of diverting festival funds to accounts McNair controlled while McNair accuses Jackson and Evans of misappropriating funds and claims that a charitable donation of $125,000 had gone unaccounted for.

Jackson and Evans eventually informed McNair that their combined votes gave them majority control, demanding McNair get their approval for any sponsorship or booking agreements she negotiated. On April 19, Jackson and Evans ordered McNair to postpone the launch of ticket sales for the Harlem Festival of Culture. With the event suspended, McNair allegedly attempted to rename the event “Uptown Fest” and move forward with the festival. Eventually, the NYC Parks Department, AMC and Ticketmaster staged an intervention and demanded the three partners resolve their disagreement, leading to a settlement on May 22.

The truce didn’t last long, and within a few days, disagreements over vendors, sponsors and how much artists were being paid to perform at the festival reignited the feud and led to new complaints from Jackson and Evans over how McNair was advising vendors to prepare for the event. The pair even criticized McNair for waiting too long to cancel the festival after learning of the heat advisory.

Jackson and Evans, through their lawyer Kenneth Sternberg of Sternberg Law, are suing McNair on 15 civil counts including breach of contract and breach of fiduciary duty. They are also seeking “a judgment declaring that McNair is solely responsible for any liability” linked to any transactions or contracts that Jackson or Evans didn’t personally approve of, “regardless of the name in which the contract was signed.” Sternberg is also asking that McNair be forced to pay $2 million for punitive and compensatory damage, plus interest.