The ESSENCE Festival of Culture® presented by Coca-Cola® is expanding its creative leadership for 2026, announcing Mara Brock Akil, Nikole Hannah-Jones, and Nina Compton as its newest Cultural Curators. They join previously announced Chief Curator Teyana Taylor, helping shape the festival’s storytelling, culinary, and cultural programming.
Each curator will oversee a distinct pillar of the festival experience, building out spaces designed to reflect the breadth of Black culture across literature, food, and lived experience.
Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist and creator of The 1619 Project, Nikole Hannah-Jones will lead nonfiction programming at the Book Festival @ ESSENCE Authors. Her role will center on shaping conversations around how Black history is documented, interpreted, and preserved across generations.
Award-winning showrunner and producer Mara Brock Akil will oversee the fiction experience, drawing from her extensive television career and her upcoming debut novel, The Revelation of Dionne Daphne. Her programming will focus on storytelling that explores the nuances of Black life across page and screen.
James Beard Award–winning chef Nina Compton returns to curate the ESSENCE Food & Wine Festival™, bringing her Caribbean roots and New Orleans culinary perspective to a food experience rooted in tradition and ongoing evolution.
All three curators join Chief Curator Teyana Taylor, who is guiding the overall creative direction of the 2026 festival. Together, the team is shaping a multi-layered weekend where literature, food, and cultural conversation are intentionally connected across programming.
ESSENCE says the goal is to create a more immersive festival experience—one where audiences move fluidly between storytelling spaces, culinary activations, and community-driven conversations throughout the weekend.
Tickets for the ESSENCE Festival of Culture® 2026 Evening Concert Series are currently on sale.