Going forward, the event will go by a new name;- ‘AfroFuture’.
Mr. Ken Agyapong Jnr; the co-founder of Afrochella has revealed that the annual festival will return this year but as ‘‘AfroFuture’’.
Related: Here’s Why Coachella Is Suing Afrochella In An Over $100,000 Law Suit
Abdul Abdullah one of the other co-founders of the event had made the announcement of the name change at the end of the two-day festival in December 2022 at the El-wak sports stadium.
‘‘This is the last Afrochella’’, he said.
Speaking in an interview on Hitz Fm Daybreak Hitz, Mr. Ken Jnr further addressed the reasons for the name change.
‘‘In the beginning of last year 2022 in February when we decided that, the theme for this year will be Afrofuturism that is when we actually came up with the idea of changing the name because in the long run we were going to change the name anyway so I guess everything fell in place with what was going on and then we changed the name during the festival before, so even if you look on our social media,” he explained.
He also cleared speculations about the event not returning because of the lawsuit they faced from Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival and their organizers, Golden Voice for copyright infringement.
“The name has been there for so long so everybody thinks because we are getting a suit that is why we changed the name but if it was because of that, the handles and everything we already have it, so if you look on our social media page all the handles have been switched to Afro future’’, he stated.
In October 2022, the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival and its organizer, Golden Voice sued Ghana’s Afrochella for alleged trademark infringement.
In the lawsuit filed in a California federal court on Wednesday (October 5), Coachella and Goldenvoice claim that Afrochella is “intentionally trading on the goodwill of [Coachella and Goldenvoice’s] well-known COACHELLA and CHELLA festivals and trademarks by actively promoting music events in the United States and in Ghana using the confusingly similar mark ‘AFROCHELLA’ and by fraudulently attempting to register Plaintiffs’ actual trademarks as their own.”
However, Mr Agyapong dismissed such claims stating that plans were already in place months prior to changing Afrochella to AfroFuture.
He added that the names on their social media handles had even changed ahead of the event in December 2022.
“I guess everything fell in place with what is going on. We changed the name before the festival. Everybody thinks because we are getting a suit that is why we are changing,” Mr Agyapong said.
Despite the suit, Afrochella 2022 was scheduled for December 28 and 29 at El Wak Stadium in Accra, Ghana. Artists on the bill included headliners Burna Boy and Stonebwoy, as well as Ayra Starr, Fireboy DML, Black Sherif, and more.
Written with context from Ameywa Debrah.
