Janet! Nicki! New Edition! And country? Breaking down the 2022 Essence Fest headliners

The first in-person Essence Festival of Culture since a new regime took over at parent company Essence Communications will feature something old, something new and something two.

In the festival’s 27th year, headliners Janet Jackson and New Edition qualify as old-school.

Another headliner this weekend at the Caesars Superdome, Nicki Minaj, is decidedly new-school.

And instead of having four “superlounge” secondary stages in the Dome’s club spaces, the 2022 Essence Fest will have only two.

Back in the day at Essence, superlounges were populated by much-loved veteran R&B acts, up-and-coming artists and New Orleans music, as well as food booths serving local restaurant cuisine.

More recently, Essence moved away from featuring outside restaurants in favor of the Dome’s standard, far more limited in-house food service. And this year’s superlounge bookings, announced barely a week ago, mostly favor artists of recent vintage, with a few notable exceptions.

Doug E. Fresh performs during Essence Festival at the Super Dome in New Orleans, La., July 7, 2019.

Ryan Hodgson-Rigsbee

One such exception is veteran rapper and beatboxer Doug E. Fresh, as part of his superlounge curation, fronting the late go-go music star Chuck Brown’s band for a tribute on Saturday night.

At press time, Essence had still not released performance times for either the main stage or the superlounge stages.

But the majority of fans — those who are not denied entry by Essence’s vaccine mandate, at least — will likely spend most of their night checking out the action at the main stage.

FRIDAY

Opening night at Essence is largely devoted to Trinidad and Tobago and Texas.

Native Texan Mickey Guyton has spent her career breaking down barriers. On Friday at the Superdome, she’ll blaze another new path: as the first country artist to sing on the main stage of the Essence Festival, which historically has showcased R&B and hip-hop.

Country music is predominantly populated by White artists. As a Black woman, Guyton stands out. Her hit 2020 single “Black Like Me” celebrated her unique perspective within the country music community.

Country singer Mickey Guyton.

PROVIDED PHOTO

On Monday, Guyton will host the annual PBS July Fourth special “A Capitol Fourth,” airing and streaming at 7 p.m. But first, she’ll bring a bit of country to Essence.

In addition to country, Caribbean music will factor prominently on Friday thanks to Trinidadian soca singer Machel Montano, Trinidadian soca band Kes and Jamaican dancehall deejay Beenie Man.

Nicki Minaj, Friday’s headliner, was born in Trinidad and Tobago before relocating to New York and emerging as a genre unto herself. She also has a career connection to New Orleans: it was New Orleans native Lil Wayne’s Young Money Entertainment that signed Minaj and gave her a national platform with her hit 2010 debut album, “Pink Friday.”

Minaj is like a more contemporary Missy Elliott: a female rapper with a fierce, fast, tongue-twisting flow who also defines herself with eye-popping visuals, from videos to stage attire. With her array of accents and attitudes, Minaj is multiple characters in one. She’s also one of the best-selling artists of the past decade, with one of the largest social media followings in all of contemporary music.

Her Essence debut is long overdue.

SATURDAY

Advance ticket sales for the 2022 Essence Fest have been far stronger for Saturday night than either Friday or Sunday. Most of the 48,500 seats for which the Superdome is configured for Essence will be filled on Saturday.

The night’s undercard includes an encore of an Essence salute to Patti LaBelle; the festival previously paid tribute to her in 2019. Fast-rising R&B singer Summer Walker is on the bill. So is Jazmine Sullivan, who is always solid.

Also on Saturday, the multi-disciplinary deejay and rapper D-Nice collaborates with Carl Thomas and Stephanie Mills. The New Orleans-born singer Lucky Daye, who won his first Grammy this year, will make a triumphant return to his hometown.

Patti LaBelle performs as Essence Festival kicks off its 25th anniversary with a multi-artist tribute to both Aretha Franklin and LaBelle at the Mercedes-Benz Superdome in New Orleans, La., Friday, July 5, 2019.

PHOTO BY SHAWN FINK

But brisk advance ticket sales for Saturday are largely due to the headliner, for whom only one name is needed.

Janet.

Or “Miss Jackson, if you’re nasty,” as she memorably asserted 36 years ago in her landmark single “Nasty.”

Years removed from any singles that moved the pop culture needle in any significant way, Janet Jackson remains an icon worthy of single-name status.

Now 56, she spends much of her time in London raising her 5-year-old son. Unlike, say, Beyoncé or Jennifer Lopez, pop culture domination is no longer a priority.

Regardless, her star power is undiminished.

She is not on tour this summer. Essence is one of just a couple of isolated performances. She’ll also headline the second night of the Cincinnati Music Festival at Paul Brown Stadium in Ohio on July 23.

Jackson is familiar to Essence audiences, having previously exerted “Control” over the Dome in 2010 and 2018.

During her 2010 performance, she memorialized her late brother Michael, who had died the previous year, with the song “Together Again.” In 2018, she dedicated “Together Again” to her dad, Joe Jackson, who had died only days earlier.

Her 2018 Essence show started with a video montage of tragic current events, including the Sandy Hook school shooting. She then opened her set with her first live performance of “The Skin Game,” a B-side single from 1990. More rarities followed.

Though that 2018 show wasn’t nearly as provocative as her 2010 Essence gig — which at times came across like a live S&M demonstration — Jackson allowed herself more fun and more costume changes than on her 2015 “Unbreakable” tour.

Her 2018 Essence appearance was part of a tour meant to support an album called “Black Diamond.” Four years later, “Black Diamond” has yet to be released.

Will she showcase a song or two from “Black Diamond” on Saturday? If so, that will likely be the only way fans hear any new material any time soon. In a recent cover story in Essence Magazine, Jackson said she’s still not ready to reveal “Black Diamond.”

“It’s so funny because I see the fans asking, ‘When are we going to get Black Diamond? Will you please release?’ Sometimes things happen that you don’t expect to happen, and you have to figure things out — or you’re in a space in your life when you have to take a step back and take a break for a minute. Even though it’s something that I absolutely love, it still is my work, my job.

“There will be music at some point. Exactly when? I can’t say just yet, but there will be. I love it too much not to do it. This is all I know. There’s so much that I want to do. But my number one job is being a mama.”

For 90 minutes on Saturday, her No. 1 job will be being Janet.

SUNDAY

The 2022 Essence finale on Sunday will also intermingle old and new.

The Isley Brothers are the oldest of the old-school acts on this year’s bill. Philadelphia hip-hop crew turned late-night TV house band The Roots returns to Essence with an intriguing collaboration: Questlove and company will back the Wu-Tang Clan’s Method Man, Ghostface Killah and Raekwon the Chef.

The R&B singer Ashanti was a last-minute addition to the Sunday show. City Girls, the Miami hip-hop duo that first broke out via a guest appearance on Drake’s “In My Feelings,” should get the crowd on its feet.

The Nigerian singer Tems scored a hit in 2021 via her featured appearance on a Wizkid song called “Essence”; it should go over well at Essence. Earlier this year, Tems hit No. 1 on the Billboard charts as a featured guest, alongside Drake, on Future’s “Wait For U.”

New Edition performs during Essence Music Festival in the Mercedes-Benz Superdome in New Orleans, Friday July 1, 2016.

Advocate photo by SOPHIA GERMER

More than a decade before Tems was born, the members of New Edition were already veteran hitmakers. They’ve performed at Essence multiple times, in multiple configurations.

Based on past performances, fans may wonder what color their matching outfits will be this year. Now that the members of this not-so-New Edition are in their 50s, can they still step and spin like the old days? And how many of their solo hits will turn up in the set?

Emerging from a hardscrabble section of Boston in the early 1980s, New Edition was essentially a new edition of the Jackson 5. Armed with broad smiles, crisp choreography and hook-laden earworms such as “Mr. Telephone Man” and “Candy Girl,” New Edition sold millions of records. Bell Biv DeVoe and other spin-off projects resulted in even more hits.

Bobby Brown, the bad boy of the bunch, was eventually booted out. He went on to dial up “Every Little Step,” “My Prerogative” and other solo hits even as his chaotic, tabloid-chronicled personal life took a toll.

New Edition, beset by bad business decisions and ego-driven in-fighting, eventually ceased to be. The principals of the group — Brown, Ricky Bell, Michael Bivins, Ronnie DeVoe, Ralph Tresvant and Johnny Gill, who joined after Brown’s initial departure — reunited in various configurations over the years, only for disputes to splinter them once again.

The most recent New Edition reunion finally achieved some stability with this spring’s successful “Culture” tour, a 30-date arena outing with “Uncle” Charlie Wilson and Jodeci. That the demons of old have largely been extinguished likely contributed to the success of the tour.

A recent A&E documentary, “Biography: Bobby Brown,” found the singer living clean and sober with his wife/manager and three young children. He’s also the subject of a 12-part reality series, “Bobby Brown: Every Little Step.”

He may be sober, but he’s still Bobby Brown, and thus unfiltered. In “Biography,” he chronicled his extensive sex life. He also noted that Janet Jackson was the “crush of my life.”

Perhaps he’ll be one of the people filling the Superdome on Saturday to watch her.