Mary J. Blige’s Strength of a Woman Festival and Summit Recruits Lauryn Hill, Summer Walker and More

Mary J. Blige, Pepsi and Live Nation Urban are joining forces to put together the second annual Strength of a Woman Festival and Summit in Atlanta’s State Farm Arena on May 11-14.

This year’s iteration will kick off with a new special live music event with Grammy Award winner Robert Glasper. There will additionally be a #HipHop50 celebration hosted by Kenny Burns featuring rarely-performed hits by Blige and friends dubbed the “MJB B-Sides” set; and a special R&B night with performances by Lauryn Hill, Summer Walker, Lucky Daye, Muni Long, and more.

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The festival was launched by Blige last year as a means to empower women and their communities with live music events and special programming curated by an all-Black, female-led team consisting of Blige, Nicole Jackson, VP of MJB Inc., and Ashaunna Ayars of the Ayars Agency.

The festival will close on a Sunday night with the Purpose Ball, produced by television personality Miss Lawrence, which will feature a special performance from Saucy Santana and aims to celebrate the LGBTQAI community and their impact on popular culture.

In between performances, the event will host panels and workshops on music, wellness, tech, beauty, and financial literacy with the goal of further empowering women of the BIPOC community. This is all done in partnership with local, minority, and female-owned businesses.

“I’m so excited to bring our Strength of a Woman Festival & Summit back to Atlanta for its second year,” said Blige. “Having the opportunity to continue to uplift, inspire, and build amongst a community of women is the reason why we created this festival. I’m so grateful for all of the support from our performers and participants and of course Live Nation Urban, Pepsi and our additional partners who are committed to celebrating and creating community for Black women.”

Added Jackson, “The popularity and impact of the inaugural Strength of a Woman Festival and Summit successfully showed how and why Black women are the blueprint for cultural relevancy and inclusion. Being able to look back and see the global reach the festival had through our live stream and billions of media impressions is confirmation that we are filling a void in the festival space. Mary, Ashaunna and myself are overjoyed to be back in Atlanta again and look forward to continued expansion in our programming and partnerships.”

Presale tickets go live today at noon ET with code “SOAW23,” while general on-sale begins March 10 at 10 a.m. ET. For more details, visit www.soawfestival.com.

Strength of a Woman Festival and Summit 2023 Lineup

Thursday, May 11

Robert Glasper at City Winery

Friday, May 12

Concert: Mary J. Blige & Friends with a special “MJB B-Sides” set celebrating Hip Hop 50th Celebration at State Farm Arena

Saturday, May 13

Strength of a Woman Summit at America’s Mart

Concert: R&B Night at State Farm Arena

Sunday, May 14

Gospel Brunch and Concert at the Bank

The Purpose Ball at The Bank powered by Gilead

Comedy Night Show at Tabernacle

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