In a world the place trend exhibits flirt with spectacle however not often court docket the soul, Grace Wales Bonner does one thing way more radical—she listens. And with the second installment of Togetherness, her sonic love letter to Black music and diasporic kinship, the designer introduced that listening—deep, reverent, ancestral—to the spiral temple that’s the Guggenheim Museum in New York Metropolis.
What’s Togetherness? It’s not only a live performance. It’s not a model activation. It’s not a playlist wrapped in a turtleneck. It’s an providing—a sequence of musical encounters curated to focus on singular artists, diasporic expression, and the sacred act of gathering. The primary version dropped into Paris throughout Fête de la Musique like a whispered prayer throughout continents.
The second landed right here, within the shadow of Frank Lloyd Wright’s architectural swirl and Rashid Johnson’s Poem for Deep Thinkers—a visible sermon presently on view via January 2026. Almost 90 works from Johnson, the patron saint of visible introspection, supplied a becoming backdrop for Bonner’s mission: to carry area for pleasure, therapeutic and radical Black creativity.
This wasn’t your run-of-the-mill playlist of competition buzz names. No, this was a rigorously crafted constellation. Nigeria’s highlife torchbearers, The Cavemen, traded harmonies with Etran de L’Air, the desert blues band reviving Sahel rock.
The Pleasure—a South African a cappella group so exact it felt like dawn in vocal type—shared the invoice with Amaarae, Fireboy DML, keiyaA, and Navy Blue, a Brooklyn poet-turned-rapper whose bars hit like whispered prophecy.
Behind the boards have been legends, Sir Rashad Ringo Smith, Ade “Acyde” Odunlami, and Lagos-born, New York-based selector Akanbi, who spun the night right into a trance state.
Sponsored by Android and Lagavulin, the night time wasn’t shy about its backers—however in contrast to most branded experiences, this one had soul. Android, which continues its inventive partnership with Wales Bonner, used tech not as a gimmick however as a gateway: a second brief movie was launched alongside the occasion, increasing the inventive universe with function. And Lagavulin? The Scotch label introduced an immersive “Layers of Lagavulin” set up that traced the journey of malt to pour like a meditation. In a room the place sound melted into sculpture and cloth whispered towards the pores and skin, the whisky spoke in hushed tones of expertise and ceremony.
This wasn’t only a trend occasion. This was church. And Grace Wales Bonner was the quiet preacher within the entrance row, reminding us that luxurious isn’t about extra—it’s about intention. In a metropolis obsessive about the subsequent factor, she gave us one thing way more beneficiant: a motive to pause, to assemble and to really feel.