It’s a Friday evening in early summer and, while the rest of the city starts to wind down, the Community Education Center in West Philadelphia remains full — of people, of music, and of life. Preparations for the Philly Youth Music Fest are underway, and there’s much to do.
I’m greeted by Matthew Kerr, co-executive director of Beyond the Bars Music, one of the primary organizations putting on the festival. He leads me on a quick tour of the building, taking me by student bands rehearsing, some kids strumming guitars, others picking out notes on a piano.
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Kerr stops every few steps to greet different students by name, before taking me to the building’s large black box theater where we meet a circle of student and adult collaborators — each one passionate and ready for the event to be a success.
This is the second year of the Philly Youth Music Fest, which will take place from 11:30am to 2:30pm on Tuesday July 15 at the Dell Music Center. It’s free and open to the public (you can get tickets here), but especially targeted towards youth, who are largely running the event. With so many young people and organizations involved, you can expect a wonderfully wide range of music, ranging from young rappers to rock bands to drum lines.
Last year’s inaugural event at Venice Island in Manayunk drew so much engagement that the team knew they had to expand. The Dell Music Center seats 5,000. Philly Youth Music Fest organizers, who have already sold close to 1,000 tickets, hope to fill as many as they can.
Nurturing Philly youth through music
“It’s not enough light shed on independent young artists inside of Philly,” says Carmelo Whitehead, who is involved by way of the 5 Shorts Project, an organization for emerging filmmakers. The youth involved with 5 Shorts will help record the music fest.
For Whitehead, who just graduated high school and was involved with the fest last year, the moment he heard the idea for a music festival centered around Philly youth, he knew he wanted to get involved. “I want to help, I want to perform, I want to do everything I can,” Whitehead, who writes and plays music as well, recalls thinking. “And that’s why I’m here today, in the second year, to help out.”
Miguel Sarmientos, also a recent high school graduate (“I dropped out of high school with a diploma,” he cracked while introducing himself, already displaying freestyle rap skills that he’ll showcase as a youth performer under his stage name Szn), agrees.
“I think normally the notion that I’ve seen on social media is that whenever young people get together it’s not always in the best light,” he reflects. “But with the Philly Youth Music Fest … you’re just going to see a lot of young people coming together for a good cause.”
Like many of the youth involved, Sarmientos found out about the event through his after-school music community. The fest, he thinks, will offer young people “support all around that you won’t get often from the city. Or at least, we’re trying to change that.”
In Philadelphia, students often rely on nonprofits to get exposure to music and the performing arts, particularly when it’s not something that their schools fund. Organizations like Beyond the Bars, or Musicopia (also involved with the music fest) have found a direct correlation between music spaces interrupting cycles of violence, providing holistic care and attention beyond just music lessons.
“We’re Philly and music is one of the cornerstones of our city.” — Shameka Sawyer, 5 Shorts Project founder.
“We’re seeing a lack of funding for things that really matter,” Matt Jernigan, also with Beyond the Bars, says, noting how powerful local Philadelphians can be. “We don’t really need federal [funding] to do everything for us. The local community initiative and the effort is where things really start and change.”
The festival reflects this mission. Before the music, beginning at noon, is what Kerr calls a “community celebration” — 40 to 50 local organizations for young people, ranging from a barber giving haircuts to Treehouse Books bringing their mobile library. A ticket for the music fest will get you into this early part of the fest as well, but it is primarily geared towards young people and getting them connected to these organizations.
And for students involved in the festival, they’re getting something else that can feel increasingly rare in these times: mentorship and true connection.
Youth Music Fest connections
A’asim Devlin, a middle schooler who goes by Sim, got his start with music watching Ant Brown, founder of the A Bro Experience which is also involved with fest planning, do freestyle raps on stage. “Can [I] start rapping on stage with him and doing stuff to help the community?” Devlin remembers asking, before starting to write his own lines. Devlin says that Brown is still his inspiration.
Brown celebrates the festival as a way to give students exposure and a platform to make positive music. In a city where he thinks most of the mainstream music as being driven by negative forces — lifting up gun violence or self destruction — he hopes to help build the infrastructure for youth to realize, “I just want to be a good musician. I don’t want to talk about violence but I still want to get on big platforms.”
Giving the students access to perform on the Dell Music Center stage (which has hosted legends like Erykah Badu, Fantasia, and Philly’s own Patti LaBelle), is something that he thinks is a great step in the right direction.
“We’re Philly and music is one of the cornerstones of our city” says Shameka Sawyer, 5 Shorts Project founder. “If we keep the funding and support going [for youth music], then it’s like each one, teach one … a ripple effect.”
Philly Youth Music Fest takes place from 11:30am to 2:30pm on Tuesday July 15 at the Dell Music Center, 2400 Strawberry Mansion Drive. It’s free and open to the public. Get tickets here.
Correction: The time for the Philly Music Fest has been changed to 11:30am to 2:30pm (still on July 15, 2025).
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