‘Music brings people together’: Festival inspires youth to positive choices, careers in the arts

Anna Lopacinski, Contributing Writer

Claire Davison, Contributing Writer

People gathered at Dogwood Dell Amphitheater on Sept. 16 to support local musicians and small businesses at the second annual RVA Music Fest. 

The event aims to support and unite Richmond’s youth through music, according to Jasmyn Buckingham, founder of the festival.

“RVA Music Fest was created in response to the senseless murder of Xavier Brown, an inspirational 23-year-old chef who positively influenced the Richmond community,” Buckingham said. 

Due to the nature of Xavier’s death, Buckingham founded RVA Music Fest in September 2022, with the purpose of shedding light on the need to support the youth and prevent them from engaging in illegal activity, she said.

“Our founders recognize the importance of starting with our youth to positively change the community,” Buckingham said.

The festival focuses on inspiring youth to make positive choices and pursue careers in the arts through the inclusion of local artists, Buckingham said. The lineup for this year’s Music Fest featured local R&B artists Forever Mason and Mikey Amore.

“I believe the music scene is important in Richmond because it gives us a voice and a creative way to express ourselves,” Amore said. “So when the community and youth can see people from their hometown doing dope things like that or events like the RVA Music Fest, it’s something they can personally relate to.”

Amore, a VCU alum and Richmond native, has been pursuing his music career for three years and has two songs, “Lover Boy” and “Demon Time,” he said. The R&B and hip-hop artist was chosen to play at RVA Music Fest by having the most Instagram mentions during a competition. 

“This will in turn hopefully grow into tradition, and later snowball into bigger and better things for not just RVA’s music scene, but for the entire city,” Amore said.

Amore said events like RVA Music Fest show that Richmond “has something great to offer.” 

“Music brings people together, and that’s something that I want to see and a value I want to see grow to something bigger than what it is within Richmond,” Forever Mason said. “That’s why I hope this event continues annually.”

Mason believes exposing kids in Richmond to the success of local musicians and showing them that music is an outlet will not only deter them from walking a bad path, but also create a sense of togetherness among locals, he said.  

“There’s a VA two-up-two-down saying to show that Virginia is for lovers, so we want to bring that to the event,” Mason said. “There’s a lot of people who might tell you that you can’t make it. That’s something you do not want to listen to. Be who you want to be, no matter what they say. No matter what they do, just be yourself.”

That’s the message RVA Music Fest hopes attendees take away from the event; to continue to bring together the youth and connect them with a positive outlet in music, impacting Richmond’s community for decades to come, Mason said.

Attendee Chyna Price said she came to the event to support the cause.

“I think music brings the community together, it tells the story of the community,” Price said. “It provides the youth a safer way to express themselves.”