11 August 2026
The first UK edition of the Diaspora Calling! festival, which hip-hop royalty Ms. Lauryn Hill first launched in Brooklyn, US in 2016, delivered itself in full force at The Milton Keynes National Bowl Friday. The evening’s greatest success was triumphantly calling people of the global diaspora to unite through the joy of music, despite some moments of poor organisation on the administrative side.
Fireboy DML warmed up the crowd for the evening, getting everyone singing to “Peru”. Giggs also appeared early, bringing out Kano to join him onstage for a surprise performance of “Ps & Qs”. Both sets, while electric, felt rushed at roughly 15 minutes each.
It would have been hard to miss the instantly recognisable, airy-but-smoky voice of Erykah Badu. Overtop a heavy, warm neo-soul baseline later in the evening, her stage presence sent some sprinting across the site to the main stage. Typically Piscean (as she often reminds her crowd) in her mutability and ever-commanding as a performer, no one can say Erykah is better on the record than in performance. She was not shy to switch up her well-loved classics, either; even with something as simple as adding a leisurely, looped “damn” behind her 1997 “Sometimes”. Always lyrical and clear as water droplets against a swinging, ambling beat, the set wrapped up quickly, just before sunset.
The Fugees came out on stage full force – Ms. Lauryn Hill in a large blue peaked cap and gold eyelids, rapping into the mic – “We the people” projected in neon behind her. Such a vivacious set was made all the more so with the addition of Erykah later on, as well as Wyclef Jean and YG Marley, not to mention a Louis Vuitton-badged electric guitar whih may have made it easy to forget she is most known for the velvety, soulful tracks of The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill.
Some may feel we saw more of Dave Chappelle doing karaoke into a mic than we did of Hill – and that may actually be true. The headliner arrived 50 minutes before the end of the festival and was cut off strictly at 23:00, with an on-screen projected “THANK YOU, EVERYONE”. It’s probably sensible to follow licensing laws – but perhaps the headliner should be put second-to-last if the plan is to be strict with the cut-off.
Any festival stragglers hopeful enough to loiter behind after the spotlights went off were treated to an a cappella of “Killing Me Softly” from the headliner, to which many joined in – a nearly total flip from the energetic, rap-heavy set we saw before the mic was cut. We can only hope the next edition will bring the same artistic potency, delivering on musicality but at times being let down by organisation. For the first UK offering, this was an overall success given the star power on show.
Words by India DB
Photography by Calder Taylor