Festivals

NYMF 2025 Transforms Enugu Iri Ji Festival with Tech Spectacle

Published

10 months ago

December 23, 2025

NYMF 2025 Enugu blends tradition with high-tech stagecraft, drawing thousands and redefining the Iri Ji festival for a global audience

The New Yam Music Festival (NYMF) 2025 Iri Ji grand finale captivated thousands in Enugu, combining cutting-edge technology with Igbo cultural heritage to deliver a globally competitive celebration of abundance and gratitude.

Also read: Olómú Festival Attracts Wider Support Amid Rising Community Pride

Organised by Heritage & Culture Africa, the festival reimagined traditional Iri Ji festivities through high-definition LED visuals, immersive lighting, large-scale stage architecture, and premium sound engineering.

The event offered a contemporary platform for young people to reinterpret ancestral storytelling, music, and fashion while celebrating unity and cultural pride.

In a show of social responsibility, organisers distributed 1,000 yam tubers to motherless babies’ homes and local market communities across Enugu State ahead of the finale. Heritage & Culture Africa emphasised that NYMF 2025 demonstrated how culture can thrive when adapted to resonate with today’s youth.

BigSea Promotions, the festival’s official production partner, elevated the event to international standards, ensuring performances blended traditional narratives seamlessly with electrifying contemporary sets.

Organisers hailed NYMF 2025 as a “world-class cultural spectacle” and a model for modern African festivals.

Highlighting the festival’s potential for economic growth and tourism, Heritage & Culture Africa noted that NYMF positions cultural celebrations as vehicles for youth engagement, brand partnerships, and sustainable development while preserving Nigeria’s heritage.

Also read: Oyo State to Host Faaji December 2025 Festival in Partnership with Amaland

As the curtains fell, organisers declared that the festival had firmly established itself as the premier Grand Finale of the Iri Ji season, promising relevance, sustainability, and global recognition for African cultural festivals.

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Culture

OLOJO….Ile Ife’s September Gift To Culture

Published

3 days ago

October 5, 2026

Mariam Balogun

By Halima Adaba,

It was a featubal if the people. It was for the anciebt town of Ile Ife, which the Yoruba race refards as the Source.

Also read: Olojo Festival 2026: Ooni Urges Leaders to Prioritise Citizens

And ut was a festivsl for the King, Arole Oduduwa, Oonirisa, Adeyeye Enitan Ogunwusi, Ojaja II.

And so between September 24 and 28th 2026, the annual featuval dazzjed in all its white glory.

Tge Monarch paid the traditional ancestral homage and offered propitiation as part of the sacred rites of the Olojo Festival.
It was a powerful expression of Yoruba heritage, spirituality, and enduring tradition.

Call it a collection of beautiful moments, faces, colours and cultural expressions.

Every frame tells a story.

Every face carries the energy.

Every moment keeps the heritage alive.

Undoubtedly one of the most sacred cultural celebrations in Ilé-Ifẹ̀. It marked a day associated with creation, thanksgiving, ancestral heritage, and the sacred appearance of the Ooni of Ife wearing the revered Aàrẹ crown.

There were also the devotees of the famed god of thunder – Sàngó who were hardly conspicuous at the festival.

Many other traditional groups came out with candor, showing a powerful expression of Yoruba cultural identity, spiritual devotion, and respect for the ancient traditions of Ilé-Ifẹ̀.

Devotees of Sàngó bekieved the ‘appearance’ of the god of thunder on Seotember 26th could be understood as a symbolic meeting of ancestral heritage, spiritual devotion, and the celebration of creation.

It was a moment when the sounds of drums, chants, and traditional praise poetry brought the history of the Yoruba people to life.

Although Olojo is closely associated with Ogun, the god of iron, and the sacred traditions of Ile-Ife, the presence of Sàngó devotees reflected the rich diversity of Yoruba spiritual heritage.

Also read: Olojo Festival 2026: Ooni Urges Leaders to Prioritise Citizens

As a participant enthused at the festival, “To witness Sàngó Olúkòso emerge on Olojo Festival day is to witness a living expression of history, identity, and ancestral pride.”