For the end of the summer festival season, Buffalo is bringing the funk.
Buffalo Funk Fest Weekend 2023 brings three days of music, dancing, art, roller skating and celebrating to the East Side of Buffalo, kicking off this evening with a block party on Jefferson Avenue.
The festival, now its 19th year, pays tribute to the Buffalonian whose very name brings to mind funk, the late Rick James of “Super Freak” fame.
It is also the culmination of Friday Night Live, which held block parties every Friday all summer long on Jefferson Avenue and Utica Street.
Marnetta Malcolm, the founder of Buffalo Funk Fest, wanted to bring a weekly version of her festival to Jefferson Avenue, to bring some joy and togetherness to the neighborhood around the Tops Markets that was the scene of the May 14, 2022 massacre.
Friday Night Live will take place from 5:30 to 9 p.m. every Friday through the end of August in a shopping plaza near Tops Markets on Jefferson.
“We’ve been out there every Friday,” Malcolm said. “This is our last one. We are happy that we got through it, and hopefully this community got everything they needed from it. And we’ll see where we are after that.”
At first, people in the community were skeptical about the weekly block parties.
“I walked into a space where…
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