Culture In Motion, a national arts roadshow founded by cultural architect Kwanza Jones, is launching a Midwest tour this summer, touching down in St. Louis, Indianapolis, Chicago, Detroit and Cleveland to celebrate local Black artists and cultural traditions.
The initiative partners with The Apollo and centers on the SUPERCHARGED Boost Bus, a mobile cultural hub that functions as both gallery and gathering space, bringing Apollo programming and creative engagement directly into neighborhoods.
Unlike traditional top-down cultural programming, Culture In Motion is designed around collaboration with local artists, churches, cultural organizations and community anchors.
"The Midwest is the right place for this work," according to a statement about the initiative. The region has exercised outsized influence on the nation's cultural landscape, from Detroit's Motown legacy and electronic music innovation to Chicago's gospel and house music traditions, Cleveland's rhythm-and-blues foundations, St. Louis's jazz and blues heritage, and Indianapolis's contemporary arts scene.
Yet these contributions often go underrecognized in national conversations about culture, which tend to center on New York and Los Angeles.
In Chicago, Gospel Best will serve as an anchor event, showcasing gospel artists selected by recommendation from churches across the city. The framework treats churches as central cultural institutions—a recognition of their fundamental role in Black American life and their influence on R&B, soul, jazz and hip-hop.
The partnership with The Apollo is particularly significant. The historic venue has spent nearly a century as a preeminent institutional home for Black artists and voices from the African diaspora. The Midwest roadshow extends that legacy through a mobile, community-embedded model.
Culture In Motion emphasizes meeting people where they are, acknowledging that cultural access remains unequally distributed. For many in the neighborhoods the Boost Bus will visit, traveling to a major cultural venue may be logistically challenging, financially prohibitive or unfamiliar.
The initiative also rejects what organizers describe as the extraction model that has long characterized how mainstream culture has related to Black communities. The roadshow is supported by the Kwanza Jones & José E. Feliciano Initiative.
