Recent Happenings: Murmuration Festival, Sista Strut, Saint Louis Natural Hair and Black Cultural Expo

Over the last two weeks, I've thoroughly enjoyed myself at a variety of events throughout the city that are proving that St. Louis has much to offer the world in the areas of health, arts, and culture. Here's a brief recap of the Murmuration Festival, the 7th Annual Sista Strut, and the 2nd Annual Saint Louis Natural Hair and Black Cultural Expo. All of the events were fantastic!

The Murmuration Festival: Sep. 23 - 25, 2016

Live Human Art Installation

So what is the Murmuration Festival you might be asking? Well, essentially it was a 3-day weekend of events that focused on educating and celebrating people on the subjects of music, art, science, and technology (with a little food, business, social issues, and fashion sprinkled in). Basically, I call it "St. Louis's answer to SXSW."

Wearable art

The festival, which was held at the Cortex, was quite wonderful and a great event for the city of St. Louis. I learned about a lot of great organizations in town that provide resources to help local makers including Archreactor, which provides welding, wood-making, and 3D printing equipment, and classes to local makers to turn their ideas into reality.

The festival also featured great local restaurants including Ices Plain and Fancy, Juniper, LuLu's Seafood and Dim Sum, and others.

Chicken and biscuit dish from Juniper

The biggest highlight of the festival for me was seeing the genius that is Flying Lotus perform on Saturday, Sep. 24th. It was an amazing show! The visuals and music that this man creates is like none other. Seriously! Also, big shout out goes to my friend Chris for accompanying me to the festival. Even though his catch phrase throughout the weekend was "this some weird [bleep]", he still didn't complain about being there and stayed with me the entire time.

Sista Strut: Oct. 1, 2016

This year I decided to do something different, and instead of walking in the Strut, I chose to volunteer at the event, which is hosted by iHeartRadio. It was a great experience. Hopefully the sponsorships and participation will continue to grow for years to come. I saw many friends and church members that I knew there, and everyone had a great time.

While in a conversation among some of the other volunteers, one woman mentioned that her husband believed that the name should be changed to "Sister Strut", instead of Sista Strut in order to get more corporate sponsors, funding, and participation. I quickly challenged this suggestion stating that the whole point of the event is to bring awareness to the black community about breast cancer. The disease takes the lives of more black women than women of any other race. Early detection is the key and together, hopefully one day, there will be a cure.

The Saint Louis Natural Hair and Black Cultural Expo: Oct. 2, 2016

Capping off my fun-filled (busy) weekend was the Saint Louis Natural Hair and Black Cultural Expo! My mom came to the event, which was held at the Holiday Inn Downtown, and had an absolute BLAST! The event was well attended and had a lot of great black-owned vendors there selling their wares. There were so many great natural hairstyles among the hair models, vendors, and attendees alike! My mother and I bought so much jewelry and accessories, it's ridiculous! But we loved it all.

I ran into my influencer buddy, Ms. Ebbi Nicole (Fluffy Girl Movement) while there as well.

One of my favorite booths at the event was that of Jewels 2 Dazzle. Huuuuuuuuuunney, when I tell you I wanted everything on that table! I wanted EVERYTHING! And all of her [Kandas, the owner] items were reasonably priced and very unique!

I can't wait to go back to all of the events next year!