Want the real Afrobeats experience? For many Black Angelenos, that means a trip to Africa
LOS ANGELES — The first thing Dee Williams noticed was that it felt like home.
It was December 2019, and the Los Angeles-based photographer had just touched down in Accra, Ghana, for the first time. What she found hardly resembled L.A., but after being raised in a Jamaican family and taking frequent trips to the island, the atmosphere in Accra couldn't have felt more natural.
"The connection between Jamaica and Ghana is so loud and proud — I absolutely love it," Williams said. "Online, we have all the diaspora wars, but once you touch land, none of that."
Williams had flown in for the music festival then known as Afrochella, after scenes from the 2018 concert caught her eye from a friend's Instagram page. Earlier that year, she had sworn off music festivals, turned off by hostile crowds and teenage fans that often made her less than welcome as a Black woman at rap and R&B shows. But the vibrancy of Accra leaped through the screen, convincing her that the atmosphere there would be different.
"At a lot of the rap
