The co-founder of Afrochella, Ken Agyapong Jnr, has revealed that although it was announced that the annual show had come to an end in 2022, the event will return in 2023.
Mr Agyapong Jnr said they have decided to rebrand and give the event a new name and identity, marking the end of the name ‘Afrochella’.
Speaking on Daybreak Hitz on Hitz FM, the co-founder indicated that it will return in 2023 as ‘AfroFuture’.
“At the beginning of last year (2022) in February, when we dedicated that the theme for the year will be Afrofuturism, that is when we actually came up with the idea of changing names. Because, in the long run, we knew we were going to change the name,” Mr Agyapong told the host Andy Dosty.
This comes after organisers of Afrochella made a ‘shock’ announcement at the very end of the two-day festival in December 2022.
This is the last Afrochella,” said co-founder Abdul Abdullah to the thousands of people still in the El-Wak stadium in the capital, Accra.
At the time, he did not give any reason.
There were speculations the event might not be making a return because they were facing a lawsuit from Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival and its organizer, Goldenvoice for copyright infringement.
The lawsuit was filed in a California federal court on Wednesday, October 5.
In the suit, 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.