Essence Fest to bless atramentous music in La.

NEW ORLEANS – The ceremony of atramentous music and ability at the Essence Music Ceremony in New Orleans will accommodate abundance to artists and admirers akin afterwards a boxy ceremony afterward Michael Jackson's death.

Singer Lionel Richie, a longtime acquaintance of the pop superstar and ceremony headliner, says assuming at Essence will accord him and others a adventitious to regroup.

"We'll bless his activity and appear calm as a ancestors bottomward there," Richie said. "It's New Orleans. The spirit of what the music business is all about is there. It absolutely is to me one of those places that's like visiting my foundation."

The festival, which began in 1995 to bless the altogether of Essence Magazine, begins Friday and runs through Sunday. It will accommodate a accolade to Jackson, as able-bodied as performances by Beyonce, John Legend, Ne-Yo, Anita Baker and others.

Richie, 60, collaborated with Jackson in 1985 and wrote what became one of the fastest-selling singles anytime — "We Are the World" — a song produced to accession money for victims of the Ethiopian famine.

"I capital him to be able to adore his activity and his success, and he was never absolutely able to do that," Richie said. "He aloof couldn't get there. For me, that was the boxy part."

Richie said his achievement Sunday will abide of favorites like "Zoom" and "Brick House," but he'll additionally baptize in a alternative or two from "Just Go," his new CD.

"I apperceive this audience," he said. "This is my audience. ... They appetite to apprehend as abundant old as I can play."

Essence additionally will accommodate a host of New Orleans acts, such as Troy "Trombone Shorty" Andrews, trumpeter Irvin Mayfield and the assumption bandage Big Sam's Funky Nation.

New Orleans applesauce accompanist Thais Clark is authoritative her Essence admission Friday with two performances — one a address to New Orleans dejection accompanist Marva Wright, who is convalescent from a achievement aftermost month, and addition with the Preservation Hall Applesauce Band.

"I adulation Essence," Clark said. "It brings a assertive activity to the city, the bodies and enthusiasm. I'm so aflame to be a allotment of it this year."

Besides music, Essence has affluence to bless with the acclamation of the country's aboriginal atramentous admiral and the festival's 15th anniversary, said Michelle Ebanks, admiral of Essence Communications Inc.

As in years past, seminars acclamation challenges in the atramentous community, such as backward schools and single-parent households, will be captivated during the day at the Morial Convention Center, and concerts are slated for evenings at the Louisiana Superdome.

On Friday, amateur and amateur Steve Harvey will allocution about alliance and amateur angry activist Bill Cosby will altercate apprenticeship a day later. Other speakers accommodate Marvelyn Brown, a 24-year-old built-in of Tennessee who was diagnosed with HIV at 19, above annual editor Monique Greenwood and Soledad O'Brien, the CNN ballast who appear on the after-effects of Hurricane Katrina.

This year is abstraction up to be a almanac crowd, admitting the crumbling abridgement and accident of two above sponsors, Ebanks said. Essence is on clue to breach aftermost year's almanac appearance of 270,000, she said.

Hotel control is accepted to be 80 to 90 percent, and could access "if we accept a lot of aftermost minute decision-makers," said Mary Beth Romig, backer for the New Orleans Convention and Visitors Bureau.

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On the Net:

Essence Music Fest, http://www.essencemusicfestival.com