Mary J. Blige and Aretha Franklin have signed on to appear at the upcoming Essence Music Festival. The event is set to take place from July 5 to 8 in New Orleans, Louisiana.
In an official statement, Essence president Michelle Ebanks said the fest has become a premiere cultural event:
"The ESSENCE music festival has always been more than just music. It's a forum to transform lives by the power of our voice to celebrate our community through music, entertainment and empowerment," she said.
"We are deepening our youth empowerment day to the festival to focus on the matters that are most critical to our next generation and we are celebrating their voice with our first ever youth empowerment concert at the Superdome. We heard consistent feedback from our audience that they wanted more and we're delivering in our Festival expansion."
Other confirmed acts include D'Angelo, Charlie Wilson, Kevin Hart, Steve Harvey and Trey Songz, among others.
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