Chance the Rapper and Vic Mensa will host the inaugural Black Star Line Festival in Accra, Ghana on Friday, Jan. 6. The Chicago rappers are set to headline this free concert, with a line-up that includes Soulquarian queen Erykah Badu and Auto-Tune titan T-Pain.

Other artists announced to join them include Jeremih, Sarkodie, Tobe Nwigwe, Asakaa Boys and M.anifest.

The Black Star Line fest will take place at Accra’s Black Star Square, the site of the international 2022 Global Citizen Festival concert that featured Usher, SZA, Tems and Stormzy.

The festival was created, according to press material, as “a celebration of Pan-Africanism, building bridges between Black people and artists of The Diaspora with The Continent.” Both the event and the arena hosting it are inspired by the Black Star Line, created by Marcus Garvey, the lauded civil rights leader and Pan-Africanist.

In addition to the concert, the Black Star Line Festival will also include a week-long series of panels and events centered on education, enrichment and cultural diffusion. These events will be hosted at local cultural centers in Accra leading up to the live performances on Jan. 6.

Mensa, who is readying his 2023 sophomore album release with Nigerian producer Bongo ByTheWay, spoke of developing the festival with his friend.

“I just started mentally formulating an idea for an event to bring Black artists to perform and tie it in with some educational experiences for them to understand the culture and just put it on ice in my mind,” Mensa said in a statement. “Then when we got to Ghana last year, I started chopping it up with some of the guys about it and thinking about how Chance would be perfect to help make this a reality.”

Fans of theirs can get their free tickets to the Black Star Line Festival at its official website.

“I had no clue he was going to come to Ghana,” said Mensa of his partner-in-rhyme. “It’s like, we’re not C3 or Live Nation, we’re two kids from Chicago with a dream to make some amazing s–t happen.”

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