BRIC Celebrate Brooklyn! Returns With Patti LaBelle, Liz Phair And Sleater-Kinney

BRIC Arts Media announced the full lineup for BRIC Celebrate Brooklyn! on Wednesday, with the landmark free outdoor festival returning to the Lena Horne Bandshell at Prospect Park from June 4 through Sept.19.

Now in its 47th year, BRIC Celebrate Brooklyn! presents 15 free concerts and three benefit shows under the theme Radical Joy, a summer built around the idea that the full richness of New York City's cultural life is here for everyone, free of charge, in the heart of Brooklyn.

"We live in a time of uncertainty, with lots of forces fulling people apart," Wes Jackson, president of BRIC said in a statement. "Our response is Radical Joy. It's the idea of choosing to come together as a community– or neighbors, families, friends, strangers– on a summer night in Brooklyn, around music, for free. That shared experience, of being with people who are all there for the same reason, is worth protecting. It’s a sense of belonging to something greater. That is what this festival is, the radical joy that comes from entering that space.”

The 2026 season opens on June 4, with Sheila E., one of the most accomplished live performers of her generation, joined by funk rocker Leon Knight and internationally recognized DJ Spinna. The season closes Sept. 19 with a benefit show featuring two of alternative rock's most enduring and influential acts: Liz Phair and Sleater-Kinney.

Among the season's highlights:

• Sheila E. (June 4, Opening Night) kicks off the summer with a funk and soul dynasty spanning four decades. Drummer, percussionist, vocalist, and bandleader, Sheila E. has been a defining force in R&B and pop since the 1980s.

• Patti LaBelle (June 26, Benefit Show) brings one of the greatest voices in American music to Prospect Park in a show that marks a significant first for BRIC: a major artist booked directly by the festival, without a corporate promoter partner. For fans, it is a chance to see a legend. For the industry, it is a statement about what independent presenting can achieve.

• Juneteenth (June 19) is programmed as a family affair in the most literal sense. Infinity Song and Victory Boyd are siblings, the Boyd family, sharing a stage and a sound rooted in the same household. Annie and the Caldwells, a Mississippi family band led by matriarch Ms. Annie Caldwell, completes a bill where family is not just a theme. It is the lineup.

• Royel Otis (July 18, Benefit Show) makes their Brooklyn debut. The Australian indie duo from Sydney has built a devoted international following with a sound that moves fluidly across indie rock, new wave, and psychedelic pop.

• Cindy Blackman Santana (July 24, Jazz Night) headlines an all-women jazz lineup alongside Mexican vibraphonist and composer Patricia Brennan, and Lucía, the 24-year-old Veracruz-born vocalist who won the 2022 Sarah Vaughan International Jazz Vocal Competition. Blackman Santana is one of the most accomplished drummers of her generation, with a 40-year career as bandleader, recording artist, and live performer.

• Yola (Aug.15, Americana Night) headlines BRIC Celebrate Brooklyn!’s America 250 celebration, sponsored by the National Endowment for the Arts. The Grammy-nominated British Nigerian singer-songwriter has become one of the genre's most essential voices. She's joined by Dom Flemons and the Traveling Wildfires, along with Brooklyn-based Pitchfork breakout Cleo Reed.

• Aaliyah Day (Aug. 8) honors the late R&B icon who was born and raised in Brooklyn. The full lineup has not yet been announced; additional details will be released in the coming weeks.

• Sasha Velour's Nightgowns (Aug. 21) brings the genre-defining drag performance series to the free outdoor stage. Nightgowns is theater with a drag sensibility, and the Lena Horne Bandshell is its natural home.

• Common (Aug. 28) performs as part of The Action Lab’s Harry Belafonte Fellowship, bringing one of Hip-Hop's most enduring civic voices to the Bandshell in an event that is as much a cultural moment as a concert.

• Liz Phair and Sleater-Kinney (Sept. 19, Benefit Show, Season Closer) close the summer with one of the most compelling pairings in alternative rock. Both artists have defined independent music for thirty years and show no signs of slowing.

Additional performances include Family Day with Antibalas and The Center for Fiction x Brooklyn Conservatory of Music x Katie Yamasaki (June 13); a reggae-influenced lineup with Wayne Wonder and Grammy-nominated Lila Iké (June 20); Habibi Fest featuring EMEL, Nesrine, and Mai Egizouli alongside a full lineup of SWANA artists (July 10); the New Soul Night with CARRTOONS ft. Hailé Supreme, Sofia Valdés, and Julia Zivic (July 31); and globalFEST with DakhaBrakha, Yeison Landero, Sally Baby's Silver Dollars, and Sunju Park (Aug. 7).

“Every show this season was built with intention to reflect the full range of who Brooklyn is and what moves us," said Saidah Blount, executive director of BRIC Celebrate Brooklyn. "We want you to come for someone you love and leave having discovered someone new. Bring a blanket, bring your people, and join us for a night under the stars.”