F3F3 Fest is Accra’s most beautiful night

Ghana's most beautiful night out is only getting bigger.
An overhead view of the F3F3 Fest crowd dancing under red and gold streamers, with partygoers in costume jewelry, sunglasses, and a Balmain-print dress among them.

June is officially in our rearview, but Accra is still sweating out F3F3 Fest, and to think it almost stopped at a party. When AFTR.’s Eni Obileye first approached CULTPOP WORLDWIDE’s Kwame Acheampong (stage name K W A M E), she wanted to throw a night dedicated to all gender expressions, then she upped her own ante: considering the times, one night wasn’t going to cut it, so the pair— alongside co-director Tracy Owoo—pulled in cultural collective Here & Beyond and supersized the affair into a festival, now an annual June staple. Last month’s takeover squeezed high-octane live music, a kiki ball, and a vendor marketplace into one very long, undeniably chic night, with a lineup that featured names from Easy D, Roi King, and Wanlov the Kubolor to BIGBADSOUND, Tower, and yes, K W A M E himself, pulling quadruple duty as co-founder, DJ, ballroom MC, and more.

The F3F3 Fest crowd faces the DJ booth under red light, framed by tinsel curtains, bunting, and hanging star decorations.
A woman with a shaved head, hoop earrings, and a black patterned sheer top sips from a paper cup beneath gold streamers and hanging silver stars.

They say a good name does half the marketing, and the F3F3 team needed theirs to celebrate “the beauty and pride in individuality, community, and all gender expressions,” as K W A M E tells us when we catch up post-festival, and a borrowed one was out of the question. “It was also important to us that we had a name that didn’t just bootleg a foreign idea or a foreign name. We wanted something that sounded, not just African, but specifically Ghanaian, since F3F3 Fest has its roots in Ghana.” The answer came from K W A M E himself, who offered up “fɛfɛ,” the Twi word for beautiful, a contribution he counts among his proudest, and last month’s edition made good on the label. He’ll happily point you to the festival’s inspirations (“So yes, it’s inspired by various music, culture, art, and pride festivals around the world”), but don’t go calling it a cover version: “We didn’t want to copy culture, we wanted to create culture. We wanted something for us, by us, and open to all.”

The “us” in question predates the festival by a few centuries. “If you think about not just Ghanaian culture but African culture as a whole, there’s, even in the way that we’re brought up, a saying like ‘it takes a village to raise a kid,'” K W A M E says. “A lot of people grew up in compound houses, and if you even think about tribes, a lot of tribes are centered around the community. So we wanted to sort of re-imagine what the future of a tribe would look like.” This year, the re-imagining welcomed a new branch of the family: a collaboration with Free Forever Collective brought Ghana’s ballroom community into the fold, a scene still in its baby stages in Accra but growing by the month, with K W A M E among its earliest and loudest champions.

Ghanaian-Tanzanian DJ, K W A M E, in a pink cycling jersey, white braids, and black shield sunglasses performs in front of the chrome F3F3 Fest sign surrounded by tinsel.

None of this is bankrolled by sponsors, and K W A M E wants that on the record. “It’s a community-funded event. It’s very for us, by us,” he says. “It’s the community that funds the project that created the project, and it’s the community that’s keeping it going.” He arrived at our conversation with a thank-you list worthy of an awards podium: the founding organizations CULTPOP WORLDWIDE, AFTR., and Here & Beyond, the donors sending support from the diaspora, Free Forever Collective and the ballroom community, the performers and DJs who made the night possible, and the women doing the tireless work on stage and off, Sister Derby and Efia Odo among them. “It’s a very historic part of Ghanaian and African culture,” he says, “and it’s a historic step in the right direction.”

The community won’t be waiting until next June for a reunion, either. The team is expanding Family Affair, a smaller offshoot of the festival where people can gather, learn about what’s happening in society, and dance it off in the same evening. “Family Affair is also going to allow people to come together and have a good time, network, laugh and dance, so that people don’t always have to wait for the larger events to find their tribe,” K W A M E says. “The only rules are to be respectful, open-minded, and just come with love.”

Photographer: Emily Brownett

Written by: HQ

June is officially in our rearview, but Accra is still sweating out F3F3 Fest, and to think it almost stopped at a party. When AFTR.’s Eni Obileye first approached CULTPOP WORLDWIDE’s Kwame Acheampong (stage name K W A M E), she wanted to throw a night dedicated to all gender expressions, then she upped her own ante: considering the times, one night wasn’t going to cut it, so the pair— alongside co-director Tracy Owoo—pulled in cultural collective Here & Beyond and supersized the affair into a festival, now an annual June staple. Last month’s takeover squeezed high-octane live music, a kiki ball, and a vendor marketplace into one very long, undeniably chic night, with a lineup that featured names from Easy D, Roi King, and Wanlov the Kubolor to BIGBADSOUND, Tower, and yes, K W A M E himself, pulling quadruple duty as co-founder, DJ, ballroom MC, and more.

The F3F3 Fest crowd faces the DJ booth under red light, framed by tinsel curtains, bunting, and hanging star decorations.
A woman with a shaved head, hoop earrings, and a black patterned sheer top sips from a paper cup beneath gold streamers and hanging silver stars.

They say a good name does half the marketing, and the F3F3 team needed theirs to celebrate “the beauty and pride in individuality, community, and all gender expressions,” as K W A M E tells us when we catch up post-festival, and a borrowed one was out of the question. “It was also important to us that we had a name that didn’t just bootleg a foreign idea or a foreign name. We wanted something that sounded, not just African, but specifically Ghanaian, since F3F3 Fest has its roots in Ghana.” The answer came from K W A M E himself, who offered up “fɛfɛ,” the Twi word for beautiful, a contribution he counts among his proudest, and last month’s edition made good on the label. He’ll happily point you to the festival’s inspirations (“So yes, it’s inspired by various music, culture, art, and pride festivals around the world”), but don’t go calling it a cover version: “We didn’t want to copy culture, we wanted to create culture. We wanted something for us, by us, and open to all.”

The “us” in question predates the festival by a few centuries. “If you think about not just Ghanaian culture but African culture as a whole, there’s, even in the way that we’re brought up, a saying like ‘it takes a village to raise a kid,'” K W A M E says. “A lot of people grew up in compound houses, and if you even think about tribes, a lot of tribes are centered around the community. So we wanted to sort of re-imagine what the future of a tribe would look like.” This year, the re-imagining welcomed a new branch of the family: a collaboration with Free Forever Collective brought Ghana’s ballroom community into the fold, a scene still in its baby stages in Accra but growing by the month, with K W A M E among its earliest and loudest champions.

Ghanaian-Tanzanian DJ, K W A M E, in a pink cycling jersey, white braids, and black shield sunglasses performs in front of the chrome F3F3 Fest sign surrounded by tinsel.

None of this is bankrolled by sponsors, and K W A M E wants that on the record. “It’s a community-funded event. It’s very for us, by us,” he says. “It’s the community that funds the project that created the project, and it’s the community that’s keeping it going.” He arrived at our conversation with a thank-you list worthy of an awards podium: the founding organizations CULTPOP WORLDWIDE, AFTR., and Here & Beyond, the donors sending support from the diaspora, Free Forever Collective and the ballroom community, the performers and DJs who made the night possible, and the women doing the tireless work on stage and off, Sister Derby and Efia Odo among them. “It’s a very historic part of Ghanaian and African culture,” he says, “and it’s a historic step in the right direction.”

The community won’t be waiting until next June for a reunion, either. The team is expanding Family Affair, a smaller offshoot of the festival where people can gather, learn about what’s happening in society, and dance it off in the same evening. “Family Affair is also going to allow people to come together and have a good time, network, laugh and dance, so that people don’t always have to wait for the larger events to find their tribe,” K W A M E says. “The only rules are to be respectful, open-minded, and just come with love.”

Photographer: Emily Brownett

Written by: HQ

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