By the time Melanie Fiona hit the stage at Tower Grove Park, the air was thick with incense, barbecue smoke, and the sound of Black folks exhaling. Not in exhaustion, but in release. For eight years running, Frizz Fest has carved out a Saturday in September where St. Louis can see itself reflected—in curls, coils, locs, and the joy that crowns the community.
What began in 2017 as a love letter from Leslie Hughes to the women she lost—her mother, grandmother, and aunts—has grown into a movement that refuses to let grief have the last word. Instead, Hughes flipped her pain into a blueprint: build a nonprofit, Frizzy By Nature, LLC, and a festival that centers self-love, confidence, and wellness for Black women and their allies.
This year, the theme was spelled out plainly: Black Joy. Hughes doesn’t mince words about what that means. It’s legacy, she says. “It’s just now really hitting me the impact we are making within the Black community. I’m proud of our dedication to love and community… I’m proud of our persistence in the belief that Black people deserve to thrive.”
Frizz Fest doesn’t move like a typical festival. Sure, there are stages—this year, Grammy-winner Fiona headlined, with local names like Tee Parks, DJ Nico Marie, and Alexia Simone filling the roster—but the heartbeat is in the details. A farmer’s market tucked between art installations. A natural Hair Show powered by Healthy Hair Solutions. Yoga mats spread across the grass as The Collective STL and STL Run Crew led fitness sessions. Black Girl Vitamins handing out scholarships to young people chasing careers in health.
It’s also in the way children run wild through the Youth Zone—free games and crafts courtesy of Walmart, Sam’s Club, and The Little Bit Foundation—while their parents wander rows of Black-owned vendors selling everything from shea butter to handmade jewelry. It’s a city-wide family reunion staged under the trees.
“Black joy is safe, compassionate, and healing,” said Valerie Hughes, Frizz Fest’s executive director. “When you come to Frizz Fest it feels like home, and that’s because it comes from the heart of our family.”
Eight years in, Frizz Fest isn’t chasing trends; it’s setting them. In a time when “wellness” is packaged and sold, Hughes and her team remind us what it looks like when wellness comes from the block—when it looks like aunties in folding chairs, kids with painted faces, and a soundtrack that slides from neo-soul into hometown hip-hop.
Frizz Fest is less an event than a practice: keep showing up, keep making space, keep insisting that Black people in St. Louis deserve to laugh, dance, and be well. And in that insistence, keep building legacy.