Multi-award-winning Malawian artist and cultural ambassador Tay Grin is set to launch a new national cultural festival aimed at celebrating Malawi’s heritage, identity and creativity while creating a platform to connect culture with tourism, enterprise and opportunity. The inaugural Roots of Malawi Culture Festival is scheduled for 17 October 2026 at Umodzi Park (BICC) in […]
Multi-award-winning Malawian artist and cultural ambassador Tay Grin is set to launch a new national cultural festival aimed at celebrating Malawi’s heritage, identity and creativity while creating a platform to connect culture with tourism, enterprise and opportunity.
The inaugural Roots of Malawi Culture Festival is scheduled for 17 October 2026 at Umodzi Park (BICC) in Lilongwe, with organisers expecting more than 3,000 people from across the country to attend.
Organised by Black Rhyno Entertainment, the festival will bring together different expressions of Malawian culture through traditional music and dance, food, fashion, arts and crafts, storytelling, traditional games, cultural exhibitions, entrepreneurship activities and live performances.
Tay Grin, who conceived the festival, said Roots of Malawi was created to give Malawians a platform to celebrate who they are while ensuring that the country’s cultural heritage remains relevant to future generations.
“Roots of Malawi is about more than entertainment. It is about identity. It is about pride. It is about saying, with confidence, this is who we are,” he said.
The festival is being developed as an annual national cultural platform bringing together traditional leaders, artists, young people, families, entrepreneurs, creatives, government, the private sector and development partners.
Beyond celebrating heritage, Roots of Malawi is intended to demonstrate the economic potential of culture by creating opportunities for local artisans, SMEs and creative entrepreneurs while strengthening Malawi’s cultural tourism offering.
Tay Grin said the long-term ambition is to build Roots of Malawi into one of the country’s defining cultural events.
“Malawi has an extraordinary cultural story, and we should be proud to tell it to ourselves and to the world. We want Roots of Malawi to become a platform that brings generations and communities together, celebrates the diversity that makes us Malawian and shows that our culture can also create opportunity. This is something we want Malawians to own and look forward to every year.”
The inaugural edition is expected to attract families, young people, entrepreneurs, creatives, business leaders, tourists, government representatives and members of the development community.
Black Rhyno Entertainment is currently engaging strategic partners from the private sector, government and development community ahead of the inaugural festival.
Further details on the programme, participating cultural groups, artists and other festival activities will be announced in the lead-up to 17 October 2026.
