Knightdale
Knightdale, NC · Arts & Culture
Axios Raleigh
Dreamville Festival could make a comeback in Raleigh in 2027
The organizers behind Raleigh's popular Dreamville Festival have applied for a special event permit to hold the festival at Dix Park in 2027. Why it matters: If it happens, the festival could attract tens of thousands of people to Raleigh and generate over $100 million in economic activity . Catch up quick: In 2025, North Carolina rapper J. Cole announced that he would be stepping back from performing and organizing the Dreamville Festival. But due to its success, Live Nation and the city of Raleigh worked out a deal to return a festival, potentially under a different name, to Dix Park. However, organizers did not put on a festival this year. Driving the news: The permit, filed in October and obtained through a record request by Axios, is still under review. If approved, it doesn't mean that the event will ultimately go ahead. But it does indicate planning is ongoing. Yes, but: A permit was also filed last year and no festival materialized, a spokesperson for the city of Raleigh confirmed. Festival organizers haven't responded to multiple requests for comment. Zoom in: The event permit lists the name of the event as Dreamville Presents and describes it as a multi-stage
Raleigh News & Observer
Basquiat and Banksy exhibit to open at NC Museum of Art. See it for free.
Two world-renowned contemporary artists, whose graffiti and street art broke into the mainstream, will be on display at the North Carolina Museum of Art. The exhibit, titled Basquiat x Banksy, pairs Jean-Michel Basquiat’s “Boy and Dog in a Johnnypump” and Banksy’s response, “Banksquiat. Boy and Dog in Stop and Search.” It’s part of a national tour which brings the work out of the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington, DC, where they’ve been on display for the last two years. “We are excited to bring these two incredible works together for NCMA audiences,” said Interim Director and CEO Katherine White in a news release. “The show invites visitors to make connections between two artists whose ideas and artwork have shaped contemporary visual culture while exploring questions of identity, power and popular culture.” The exhibit will open on Sunday, Nov. 22 through Sunday, May 30, 2027, in the East Building at the North Carolina Museum of Art, and it’s free to the public. “Basquiat’s creations dismantled how the art world viewed late 20th-century painting and American art in general,” according to the museum. “The work’s genesis from urban graffiti and a hip-hop aesthetic was the stuff of modern mythology.” “Boy
POLLSTAR
jocoreport.com
spectrumlocalnews.com
familydestinationsguide.com
Raleigh News & Observer
After 51 years, Durham won't have a CenterFest next year. What we know.
Two months after artists and festival goers gathered in downtown Durham for CenterFest, its hosts have announced the fine arts festival won’t be returning next year. The Durham Arts Council said CenterFest will pause as the council considers the event’s future. September’s celebration marked 51 years since the event was first celebrated in Durham. CenterFest is the state’s oldest outdoor fine arts festival. It draws tens of thousands of people to the city’s downtown Five Points plaza over two days to enjoy over 100 visual art vendors, a parade, kids’ activities, music and other performances and food trucks. “This is a pause, not a farewell,” Katie Wyatt, the council’s executive director, wrote in a statement. “We are taking this opportunity to thoughtfully evaluate the festival’s future, strengthen community partnerships, explore new possibilities, and consider how CenterFest can continue to evolve alongside the community it serves.” Durham Arts Council finances In her statement , Wyatt said the council will invite artists, residents and supporter to help shape CenterFest’s next chapter. They plan to hold a public forum and share updates through its ArtVibes e-newsletter . “We believe deeply in the power of the arts to bring people together. Events like CenterFest
hoodline.com
raleighweekend.com
lifeonpawsandwheels.com
📻🐾 WPTF AM Radio Building in Cary, NC – Historic Art Deco Landmark That Inspired Stranger Things!
Simba and I visited the historic WPTF AM Radio Building in Cary, North Carolina, an incredible Art Deco-style radio transmitter station that helped inspire the fictional WSQK radio station in Netflix's Stranger Things! With its rounded corners, streamlined windows, vintage lettering, and towering broadcast antennas, this unusual building looks like something straight out of another era.
ghfalcon.com
Raleigh News & Observer
Doo-wop legend who sang ‘Money Honey,' other R&B hits, to get NC marker
Clyde McPhatter, a falsetto-voiced pioneer of early rock-and-roll, who launched his highly influential but short career in the churches of Durham, will soon grace an North Carolina historic marker on the streets where he first learned to sing. Born in 1932, McPhatter grew up in a Baptist family in Durham’s Hayti neighborhood, where he sang solos in the choir at his preacher father’s church, Mount Cavalry Baptist, but he soon moved to New York, formed a gospel group based in Harlem — The Mount Lebanon Singers. Like many crooners of his era, McPhatter followed the powerful draw of secular music, and he lent his voice to the early 1950s blend of rhythm and blues. This combination of gospel soulfulness and free-spirited, sexually charged energy led the country into a new rock and roll era. A young Ernie Barnes would recall sneaking into the segregated Durham Armory to get a glimpse of McPhatter with his doo-wop Dominoes, describing the scene he saw on the dance floor, so bold for the era it seemed sinful, but not so audacious he didn’t move along. “What I observed was the no inhibition, no self-consciousness or rigidity, just fluid movement while the music punctuated every