Artscape, downtown, 100 Holliday Street, May 23 to 24
On May 8, the @artscapebmore Instagram account released a sort of cheesy video with a fortune teller announcing that “it is almost time for Artscape, so call me now.” Ten days later, a fortune teller was still about the only way to get information about much of what is going on at Artscape this year, its second iteration since moving downtown and to Memorial Day weekend.
Finally, the weekend before the festival, CreateBaltimore released a lineup of artists, if not the schedule of when they will play, leaving a lot to the imagination, or the fortune teller.
For instance, they are presumably still having the Beyond the Reel film programming, but when you went to that part of the festival’s webpage in recent weeks, it took you to the 2025 schedule with no indication that it is old (we almost tried to review some of last year’s programming). And now, the link to learn more about the film programming takes you to a page about the Sondheim Prize.
But here’s what we do know about the festival’s second year at its new time and location: the Roots! Despite their association with cornball Jimmy Fallon, the Roots are one of the most exciting Artscape headliners in a while — at least to people of a certain generation who came of age in the era of “Illadelph Halflife” or “Things Fall Apart.” The other headliner, legendary R&B diva Stephanie Mills, also takes square aim at getting us elders out the damn house and downtown — do Artscape headliners always skew on the older side? Well, when the famously young mayor announced the third headliner, Kindred the Family Soul, whose hits are 20 years old, he was answering in the affirmative. Anyway, in this case, it works. The Roots!
The Scout Art Fair in the War Memorial was one of the great successes of last year’s festival. Creating a gallery- or museum-style group show in the War Memorial placed the art front and center in Artscape, and this year’s invitational fair is set to be even better. There’s lots of disclosures to make here, since it was curated by Devin Allen, who just won an MDDC press award for his photography here at the Beat, and features photo editor J.M. Giordano. But the truth is, Allen probably has the best eye in town, and it’s exciting to see the 30 or so artists he chose along with co-curator Cierra Britton and the ways the works will interact with each other and the crowds in the grand hall of the War Memorial.
Another really cool new thing is the POSH Pride Kickoff Party on Saturday, May 23, at the M&T Bank Stadium. Just the thought of filling the football stadium, that temple of hypermasculine homoeroticism, with a big queer party to kick off Pride and Artscape is a grand idea.
There’s a storytelling event with Beat contributor (and friend of the paper) D. Watkins. And now we know at least that there will be some great local bands playing, including Brandon Woody, Greeyo, and Moth Broth, plus a slew of After Dark acts. For a local band, playing at Artscape is huge because you aren’t responsible for the draw, and more people will hear your music passing by than would ever come to a club show.
And so perhaps the cheesy fortune teller was right. “You will wander aimlessly but with purpose,” he says when asked of what there is to do at Artscape. “You will say things like ‘Oh, wow, I really like that.’”
Maybe the lack of clear information is a bit of performance art in its own right and the city is trying to force us all off of the internet and outside of our schedules so that we can just aimlessly wander around. If so, it might be the best Artscape yet. (Baynard Woods)
Sowebo Arts and Music Festival, Hollins Market, 1100 Hollins Street, May 24, 12 p.m. to 8 p.m.
When Mayor Brandon Scott moved Artscape from its traditional mid-summer dates to Memorial Day weekend, he was, perhaps unwittingly, taking a page from the Sowebohemian hippies and freaks who started the Sowebo Arts and Music Festival on the Sunday of Memorial Day weekend 43 years ago — as a response to the already corporatized and sanitized version of “the arts” presented by Artscape, the city’s flagship festival.
I say “unwittingly” because when announcing before last year’s Artscape that it would be moving, Scott made no mention of Sowebo Fest, saying that no other festivals would be permitted for that same weekend (also forgetting Deathfest — see next blurb), so he might have forgotten that the festival was that weekend. But the fears of the Sowebohemians proved overblown as the festival was permitted, and it didn’t seem to be hurt too badly by the competition of Artscape.
A short ride from Artscape, it would be easy to make a day of hitting both festivals — and the city could make it easier by making the east-west buses that would connect the two festivals free that Sunday. Instead of a competition, the festivals that happen Memorial Day weekend could all help feed a “festival weekend” that could become something like our Mardi Gras.
This year’s Sowebo features nearly 50 musical acts across four different stages spread out on the streets surrounding Hollins Market, including including Eva Rhymes, MUSUMUSU, Lil G30, The MuthafunkaholX (who are also playing Artscape), Bitchfork, and DickFuzz (and, for full disclosure, my band, the Barnyard Sharks).
In addition to the music, there’s the food, not just the stuff that comes in for the festival but the great food that is already in the neighborhood. Rooted Rotisserie is right in the heart of the festival and will be selling tastes of their delicious fare, so if you haven’t been able to get a reservation at the highly-praised Black-owned restaurant, you can stop by to see what you’ve been missing. Or stop by Oh Honey On the Bay, whose lines can stretch around the block for one of their signature Funky Fish sandwiches.
Sowebo is about celebrating the city, so don’t miss the arabber pony rides or the two puppet parades put on by the neighborhood stalwarts of Black Cherry Puppet Theater, an interactive spectacle appropriate for both kids and hippies, with drumming, music, and general weirdness capturing the original spirit of the festival. (Baynard Woods)
Maryland Deathfest, multiple locations, May 21 to 24
Like orioles (icterus galbula) returning to the Chesapeake region from the South, the legions of death metal fans (caput metalli) wearing ripped black T-shirts with gothic fonts and spiked bracelets are a sure sign of spring in Baltimore. First, you spot one or two early adventurers looking a little out of place at a downtown bar like Mick O’Shea’s, and soon, the streets are thronged with them and it is glorious. Despite the sometimes fearsome look of the metalheads, you couldn’t ask for a more polite bunch of tourists who are delighted to be in the city — having come from all over the world to see bands with names like Pig Destroyer, Bongzilla, God Dethroned, and Miasmatic Necrosis in the Land of Pleasant Living.
Despite the color of the clothing, death metal fans can skew pretty white and pretty male, but not exclusively. Check out the utterly rad Indigenous band Pan-Amerikan Native Front who play thrashing, ripping songs, often about Native battles against the colonizers. There’s also the international, all-women band Emasculator, whose fierce, brutally fast, and ferocious howl captures not only the speed with which time seems to be passing but all of the rage and fury these last few years have ignited in so many women.
With more than 40 bands from who knows how many dimensions spread out over 5 stages — Nevermore Hall, Soundstage, Angels Rock Bar, and two outdoors at The Market Place Stage and Power Plant Live! — this is truly one of the city’s biggest and most beloved music festivals.
Even if you don’t go into the festival, get close enough to hear it when you’re downtown for Artscape and you’ll be in for a treat. Even a block or so away, you can feel the bass rumbling inside your chest. (Baynard Woods)
“Coffy,” The Charles Theatre, 1711 N. Charles Street, May 28, 9 p.m.
Having recently revisited the film on Tubi with near constant ad interruptions on my Macbook in bed, it’s hard to process how much more of a treat “Coffy” will be on the big screen. To say nothing of the improved fidelity and enhanced immersion theatrical presentation offers, it’s a movie, like all Blaxploitation classics, meant to be seen with a crowd.
During the first five minutes of narrative setup, one of a big-time drug dealer’s underlings implores him to come outside of the club and meet the woman he’s brought as a gift. She’s strung out and looking to score, but it is repeatedly insisted that she’s like no other woman on this earth. A tall order for a character introduction, until we follow the two men to a waiting car, and the reverse shot of the backseat reveals Pam Grier. It was the ninth film she’d ever made, but even seeing it 50 years later, it feels like the first time anyone has ever laid eyes on her. It’s as impactful and mythical a star-making turn as the exploitation era, or any era, has ever provided.
90 minutes of following Grier’s Coffy, a nurse on a revenge tour to make the pushers who poisoned her 11-year-old sister with drugs pay. Coffy recreationally goes undercover, infiltrating the criminal underworld and enacting violence and retribution like The Punisher, but it’s her cunning and zeal underlying her compassion that make her such a compelling screen presence. The film is rough and raw and more unsettling than I’d remembered. There’s a disturbing specificity to its exploration of the intersection between vice and politics and how all exploitation, even the kind this very film required to make, is inexorably entwined.
But it is otherwise such a lightning rod and crowd pleaser. Hearing Roy Ayers’ music blast through The Charles’ speakers and watching Grier unload on some of the grossest individuals you’ve ever seen on screen is my idea of the perfect night at the movies. (Dominic Griffin)