This event is FREE, no need to book.  

Black History Month Belgium and AB are once again joining forces for a new edition of BHM. This year, the theme is ‘The Sounds of Blackness’. With this in mind, we are organising the official BHM launch party for all of Belgium - a large-scale musical celebration in the heart of Brussels for the entire community!

LINE-UP
INNOCNT
Born in Paris and raised in a multicultural family with Romanian, Haitian, and Belgian influences, Antoine Innocent, known as Innocnt, grew up immersed in music and live performance from an early age.
Between shadow and light, Innocnt has now established himself as one of the most sincere and moving voices of the new Francophone pop scene. His world is a subtle blend of pop, soul, R’n’B, folk, rock, and country, carried by sensitive songwriting and rare authenticity.
In 2025, he unveils his first EP, Six — six tracks like six fragments of life, oscillating between softness and intensity. His voice, both raspy and luminous, carries intimate and universal lyrics capable of moving listeners within just a few notes.
 
RAPHA
RAPHA is a 23-year-old rising pop artist from Belgium with Congolese roots. After winning
MNM Rising Star in 2020 and breaking into the ULTRA Top 50 BE with her debut single
“Funny”, she kept building momentum winning Soundtrack in 2023 and performing
internationally for the first time in Scotland.
Her debut EP Circus, released May 16th, tells the story of the “clown of the group”, the
one who keeps everyone laughing while secretly falling apart. Across its tracks, RAPHA
lets the mask slip, revealing raw self-doubt and the process of healing underneath.
Currently working on new music set for 2026, RAPHA continues to carve her path with
honesty and boldness. Inspired by artists like Olivia Rodrigo, Rachel Chinouriri, Ravyn
Lenae, and Billie Eilish, she creates music that speaks to the messiness of growing up,
mental health, and identity.
 
FRED GATA
Fred is a Rwandan-Belgian artist with a voice that floats somewhere between warm tea and a smoky Sunday evening. He moves at the crossroads of hip-hop and soul, but anyone who’s seen him live knows that “moves” is no euphemism. The man lives his music. Not with choreographies or light shows, but with raw energy, charisma that needs no media training, and lyrics that hit like a sharp left hook if you’re not paying attention.
In 2023, the wider public finally took notice when he casually scooped both the jury and audience prizes at Sound Track. Double win. Since then, he’s shared the stage with names like Michael Franti, Martha Da’ro, Hak Baker, and Antony Szmierek— artists who, each in their own way, do more than just deliver a catchy hook.
 
Adam La Nuit
Adam La Nuit is a Belgian-Congolese artist born in Liège and raised in Kinshasa. A songwriter, singer, videographer, and illustrator, he blends alternative pop, French chanson, Afro, soul, and Congolese music into a deeply autobiographical and poetic body of work.
In 2023, he won the Golden Afro Artistic Award for Emerging Artist. In 2024, he released Salle 1: La beauté de ma colère, the first installment of a musical trilogy about the stages of life.

Inspired by Édouard Louis, Frank Ocean, Bergman, and Koffi Olomidé, he claims a free, sensitive, and undisciplined artistic vision.

This year, Black History Month Belgium invites you to listen deeply with “The Sounds of Blackness” as its guiding theme. The sounds of our words, of our music, of our bodies have always been central to Black expression, carrying memory, resistance, joy, and collective imagination across time and place. From rhythm and melody to voice and silence, sound shapes how Black stories are remembered, shared, and transformed.

For Black communities in the Diaspora, music is more than art. It is a vessel of survival, connection, and storytelling. Music holds grief and celebration at once, allowing emotions, identities, and futures to be expressed beyond language. Ancestral songs, spirituals, drums, protest chants, club culture, and contemporary soundscapes all form part of a living archive. Therefore, Black History Month Belgium has placed music at the heart of this edition’s programme, through concerts, listening sessions, and movement practices.

Sound goes beyond music. It is the sound of the words we use to tell our stories and to express our inner feelings. It is the laughter and clamour as well as the sigh and the cry. It is the sound of release when we move our bodies. Therefore, expect an amplification and propagation of sound through conversations and reflections that explore the realities of our bodies, communities, and histories.

Alongside moments of collective celebration, the programme also creates space for attentive listening, learning, rest, and healing, recognising these as essential practices within Black cultural life.

By amplifying Black sounds within the Belgian context, this edition highlights the many migration journeys, musical influences, body experiences, and intergenerational narratives that connect Black communities. At the same time, it calls for continued awareness and solidarity with those whose voices are being silenced elsewhere, including in the Congo, Sudan, and beyond. 

The Sounds of Blackness honours these legacies as deeply rooted and constantly evolving. The Sounds of Blackness invites us not only to hear, but to listen, feel, and resonate together.

Visuals: Rachel Hansoul