The organizers behind Afrochella have unveiled a fresh moniker for their artistic celebration, rechristening it as AfroFuture.
Ken Agyapong Jr., one of the co-founders of Afrochella, has revealed that despite initially announcing the event’s conclusion in 2022, they have decided to stage the festival this year in Ghana. Agyapong, the son of the Member of Parliament for the Assin Central Constituency, explained that their motivation for this change was to rebrand and breathe new life into the event, effectively marking the retirement of the name ‘Afrochella’ from the previous year.
In an interview on Hitz FM, Mr. Agyapong shared, “Back in February of last year (2022), when we adopted the theme of Afrofuturism for the year, that’s when the idea of a name change first emerged. We knew all along that a name change was on the horizon.”
Rumors had circulated that the event might not return due to a lawsuit initiated by the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival and its organizing entity, Goldenvoice, alleging copyright infringement. This legal action was filed in a California federal court on October 5.
In the lawsuit, Coachella and Goldenvoice assert that Afrochella has been “deliberately leveraging the positive reputation of [Coachella and Goldenvoice’s] renowned COACHELLA and CHELLA festivals and trademarks by actively promoting music events in both the United States and Ghana under the confusingly similar mark ‘AFROCHELLA,’ and by attempting to fraudulently register Plaintiffs’ actual trademarks as their own.”
Mr. Agyapong countered these accusations, asserting that the decision to transition from Afrochella to AfroFuture had been in the works for several months prior. He disclosed that they had even updated their social media handles with the new name well before the December 2022 event.