The Black Rock Coalition Orchestra and All-Star Friends Will Perform Sly & The Family Stone's 'There's A Riot Goin' On' at Webster Hall

A live, all-star reimagining of Sly & The Family Stone’s dark masterpiece, There’s A Riot Goin’ On comes to Webster Hall on Wednesday, October 23, 2024 (doors open at 7:00 pm). The concert will feature performances by the BRC Orchestra (the Black Rock Coalition’s all-star repertory company of premiere musicians), as well as luminaries such as Vernon Reid and Corey Glover of Living Colour, Lisa Fischer, Bernard Fowler, Sophia Ramos and Kokayi. Author Miles Marshall Lewis will host the concert. He is the author of the 33 1/3 Series book about the There’s A Riot Goin’ On album. HeadCount, a nonpartisan voting advocacy group, and the NAACP (the nation’s longest-standing civil rights organization) will be onsite at the concert to facilitate voter registration and to distribute voter education materials. Additionally, a representative from the NAACP will address the audience about the value of the Black vote and the upcoming 2024 elections.

The There’s A Riot Goin’ On concert will take place at Webster Hall, 125 East 11th Street (between Third and Fourth Avenues) in New York City. General admission tickets are $50 in advance, $60 at the door, and $75 for VIP seating. There will also be a special post-concert “meet and greet” on site. Tickets, directions, and additional information are located at www.websterhall.com.

THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE GROUNDBREAKING ALBUM

Darrell McNeill, PoetWarrior Productions CEO and the executive producer/creative director for Webster Hall Riot concert, shared that “Sly Stone is a cornerstone genius in all genres. Riot wasn’t his most popular album, but it was his most revolutionary and influential. It reflected the anxiety of its times and shifted the sonic palette of Black pop albums that followed.” McNeill continues: “Riot is arguably Sly & The Family Stone’s most complex and challenging work. The album is a product of a chaotic period for the bandleader, filled with band infighting, heavy drug use, violence, criminal activities, and legal battles with the record company. But amidst the confusion is some of the most brilliant music of Sly Stone’s career.”

BRC Executive Director Earl Douglas adds, “It's still hard to believe that in the midst of all the pressures that Sly was under, albeit of his own making, he was able to produce, largely on his own, a dark, yet beautiful masterpiece that set a template that musicians are still following.”

McNeill, who is also the BRC Director of Operations, has produced more than two dozen Black Rock Coalition Orchestra performances, including the performance of Riot at the Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM) in 2016. About the relevance of the masterpiece, McNeill states: “When Riot was first released in 1971, it made a statement about the fragile state of the Black community during that election year. In 2024, PoetWarrior and BRC are spotlighting it again to address a much more intense vibration. Our partnership with HeadCount and the NAACP is PoetWarrior putting its money where its mouth is. Everything we do is going to center and magnify our community.”

THE BLACK MASTERS SERIES from POETWARRIOR PRODUCTIONS

The Webster Hall concert is the first installment of PoetWarrior Production’s Black Masters Series, featuring the BRC Orchestra performing retrospectives of Stevie Wonder, The Isley Brothers, Tina Turner, Donny Hathaway, and others—all in 2025. “We’re putting our culture front and center,” says McNeill. “We’re not waiting for a seat at the table anymore. We’ve built our own tables and we’re compelling the world to meet us where we are.”