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U.S. Rep. Maxwell Alejandro Frost Credit: Mauricio Murillo<\/p>\nU.S. Rep. Maxwell Alejandro Frost Credit: Mauricio Murillo<\/p>\n
Despite what could understatedly be termed an\u00a0 \u201ceventful\u201d year in Washington, D.C., Orlando\u2019s U.S. Rep. Maxwell Alejandro Frost is still bringing back his MadSoul Music & Arts Festival to the Orlando Amphitheater this time on Saturday, Dec. 6. <\/p>\n
With a powerhouse lineup of music \u2014 Magdalena Bay, Cuco, Aly & AJ are the headliners \u2014 and speakers \u2014 U.S. Rep. Ayanna Pressley, Florida Sen. LaVon Bracy Davis, Tennessee Rep. Justin Jones and more \u2014 this promises to be a beautiful day of music and advocacy. Orlando Weekly spoke to Rep. Frost about curating the lineup, learning lessons from the first at times tumultuous year of the festival, and using this platform to provide concertgoers with resources for direct action and civic engagement.<\/p>\n
Orlando Weekly: Talk to me a little bit about picking the headliners for this year\u2019s fest.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Frost: We really wanted to think through ways that we could highlight either artists who have a connection to Florida or from the South generally, or to one of the issues that we care about. That\u2019s kind of the starting basis for a lot of the lineup. Magdalena Bay was an artist that was always on the list of people we wanted to hit up. I\u2019m a big fan of theirs. They put out my favorite album in the last year and they\u2019re from Miami. We also wanted to book an artist that could bring in a lot of people, but that was still seen as coming up, in a way. We reached out to them about it and we\u2019re really happy to confirm them.<\/p>\n
Aly & AJ are very interesting. I met them at a gun violence prevention event a couple years ago, and asked them why they were there. They actually had survived an instance of gun violence; there was a drive-by shooting that happened while they were on tour, their bus got shot up. And they released a song called \u201cSirens\u201d about gun violence. They\u2019ve been big advocates, and I\u2019ve done multiple things with them, and so they were more than happy to come down to do the event. It\u2019s a very similar thing with Cuco, who I met, and realized he was really into immigration work and really fighting ICE. And when he heard that we were going to be supporting local immigration groups, he was more than happy to come and be a part of it.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Ren is probably the most different booking that we\u2019ve done. They\u2019ve fallen on really hard times with what\u2019s going on with their building. I thought, what would be cooler than to uplift what they\u2019re going through, also they\u2019re just a staple of Orlando arts, music and culture. I called Donald [Rupe] and I said, \u201cI\u2019d love the Ren to do a set.\u201d He asked, \u201cWhat do you guys want us to do?\u201d I was like, \u201cI just want you to do the Ren on the MadSoul stage.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
I wanted to speak to you about the speaker lineup. There\u2019s some big names on there, like Rep. Ayanna Pressley \u2026<\/p>\n
Ayanna was someone that, even right after last year\u2019s MadSoul, I knew I wanted to ask her to come and be a part of it. She was actually one of the first people I reached out to kind of be our, I don\u2019t know, like our lead speaker for this year. We\u2019re so happy to have her.<\/p>\n
I thought really closely about a lot of the issues that are top of mind for people, and wanted to invite people that can speak to things relating to that. Delia Ramirez is one of my closest friends in Congress, and she\u2019s an amazing advocate. She\u2019s someone who has been really on the front lines of fighting ICE and of what\u2019s going on with immigration right now. She\u2019s also the sponsor of the Block the Bombs Act, which is a very important bill relating the atrocities that have been going on and the genocide in Gaza. Delia is coming to the festival, as someone who\u2019s a leader on many different, really important issues that I think a lot of people care about.<\/p>\n
Justin Jones, obviously, is a brother of mine. He was here last year, but I think it\u2019s always important to me that we anchor the festival in Southern solidarity. A lot of times Florida isn\u2019t seen as part of the South, and I really try my best to bring in young Southern leaders from other states as well, to tie that connection together.<\/p>\n
So having Justin and also Anderson Clayton, who\u2019s the chair of the North Carolina Democratic Party \u2014 she\u2019s actually the youngest chair in the country. She\u2019s younger than me! But she is a bold progressive in the South, and it\u2019s just going be great to have her. <\/p>\n
A duo I want to talk about is Sen. LaVon Bracy Davis and her mother, Dr. LaVon Wright Bracy, who helped integrate schools in Gainesville, and has been one of the most foremost voting rights activists in a time where it was really difficult.<\/p>\n
We try to balance MadSoul. The New York Times was at MadSoul last year, kind of polling people as they entered and they found out that 90% of the people who came, it was their first political event. And so I want to make sure people never feel like we\u2019re talking at them or like preaching at them with 30-minute speeches, but that it\u2019s more just throughout the festival. So this year, our second stage is not really going to have much music at it \u2014 it is actually going be a panel stage where people can come and hear, I\u2019m calling them, bite-size conversations: 20-minute panels where it\u2019s going to be people from the speaker lineup talking about very specific issues. One of them is going to be Sen. LaVon Bracy Davis interviewing her mom about what she went through in very difficult times. And I hope people can take that as a source of inspiration as we\u2019re in the times that we\u2019re in now.<\/p>\n
And then, we\u2019ll have our future mayor [Rep. Anna V. Eskamani] on, so I\u2019m just really stoked about this year\u2019s speaking lineup. <\/p>\n
And every year we have a national labor leader. Last year we had Sara Nelson, who\u2019s national president of the Flight Attendants Union. This year, we have April Verrett, who is the National President of SEIU. Not only is she going to be on a panel talking about healthcare workers and the fight for labor fights, but we\u2019ll have a lot of our caretakers and care workers who are part of SEIU with her on stage. <\/p>\n
So it\u2019s a stacked lineup of really amazing people, and I think they\u2019ll really speak to the MadSoul audience in the way that they need to hear about these issues,<\/p>\n
Proceeds from the event are going to some local organizations \u2014 which ones?<\/p>\n
Yeah, it\u2019s going to be three organizations. Orlando Center for Justice \u2014 and just to give some background on this. Earlier this year, I was kind of wrestling with what organizations we\u2019d want to donate to. But it was literally on the train ride back from Alligator Alcatraz, my first time going<\/a>, that I said this year MadSoul will support local immigration groups. And it was really being at Alligator Alcatraz and being a part of that struggle that pushed me to make that decision.<\/p>\n I wanted to make sure we had a wide cross section of groups doing different kinds of work, and so we have Orlando Center for Justice, which is a legal aid group which does invaluable work. They don\u2019t have enough money, nearly enough capacity, but my office has worked a lot with them on a lot of different cases. <\/p>\n We have the Hope CommUnity Center, which does a lot of work in helping immigrants kind of get integrated into life here: figure out what to do, know your rights, trainings, registering to vote, citizenship clinic, school, English lessons, Spanish lessons. And then we\u2019re also supporting Florida immigrant Coalition, which is more on the advocacy side. So between these organizations we\u2019re supporting Legal Aid, mutual aid, education and political advocacy, which I think shows a cross-section of the type of work that needs to be done in this moment. We\u2019re really, really stoked about the groups that we\u2019ll be supporting.<\/p>\n When you think about the challenges of last year\u2019s festival \u2014 the venue, the weather, the protests \u2014 what did you learn and how are you applying it to this year?<\/p>\n What happened last year with weather really put me on edge. As you know, we got very lucky with close calls on weather, but just as easily the whole thing could have been canceled, which we were very close to doing because of inclement weather. I\u2019ve learned December makes it a lot harder for booking artists, but it\u2019s a lot better and easier on the weather front. So I think from here on out, we\u2019ll have MadSoul within that December to February range. Rather it be maybe there\u2019s a cold front, it\u2019s a little too cold outside, versus having lightning and a monsoon.<\/p>\n With the location, Loch Haven Park is beautiful. It was amazing to be out there. But I found, from a security perspective and logistics, it makes a lot more sense for us to move the festival to a music venue and a place that already had a lot of the infrastructure in it, which would allow us to use more resources for keeping people safe, keeping artists safe.\u00a0<\/p>\n You know, on the protests and what happened, I think there\u2019s a few things. MadSoul ended up falling on a nationwide day of action for Gaza, which I think was a big reason why a protest was planned. And the protests that happened outside, we had many guests that were at the festival that went outside to join the protests and then came inside, and vice versa. I didn\u2019t have an issue with it, you know? There\u2019s a national day of action, this is an important issue to highlight, and Gaza was spoken about on stage a lot.<\/p>\n So I think that what happened outside was fine, but later on in the night, that interruption [Ed. note: Protesters in the crowd interrupted and briefly halted headliner Muna\u2019s set] was actually a different group than who planned the protests outside. And I just think that wasn\u2019t \u2026 I don\u2019t think that was right, especially with a group like Muna. They\u2019ve advocated so much and done a lot in terms of speaking out against the genocide in Gaza, and I\u2019m not sure that really helped get a good, positive message across, especially to a lot of the audience. I think a big lesson for me was just making sure we\u2019re intentional about talking about a lot of the issues that people care about.\u00a0<\/p>\n You have to ask yourself how is your event \u2014 if you\u2019re trying to meet the moment culturally with music and different things like that \u2014 meeting the moment politically as well? That\u2019s part of the reason I invited a lot of the people I invited this time. We\u2019re going to talk about immigration, we\u2019re going to talk about climate, we\u2019re going to talk about Gaza, we\u2019re going to talk about a lot of the things that are at the top of people\u2019s minds.<\/p>\n It\u2019s important as well to provide \u2014 in real life \u2014 resources and concrete things you can do. People desperately want to help change how awful seemingly everything is.<\/p>\n Exactly. And a variety of options is so important because I could just, like, we could set it up so it\u2019s literally just my campaign or just the Democratic party. But the fact of the matter is different people are going to want to do different kinds of work, right? It could be electoral politics, it could be mutual aid, it could be advocacy, it could be direct action. At MadSoul we\u2019re going to have, I think, 25 or 30 different organizations who are essentially all vying to get the people going to MadSoul to be involved with their group.\u00a0<\/p>\n Whether it\u2019s Sunrise Movement or issue advocacy or the Democratic party, you have a lot of options to pick from, which I think is important. Not enough Democrats do that because we tend to want people to just plug into our thing, but it\u2019s really not about that. You\u2019re going to have the opportunity to go and meet people from those groups here locally that can answer a question that a lot of people are asking: \u201cWhat can I do?\u201d And we want you to get involved with the group that can answer that question for you every single day.\u00a0<\/p>\n 3 p.m. Saturday, Dec. 6, Orlando Amphitheater, 4603 W. Colonial Drive, instagram.com\/madsoulfestival,<\/a> free-$100.<\/p>\n Orlando\u2019s daily dose of what matters. Subscribe to The Daily Weekly.<\/p>\n Related Stories<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t \n\t\t\t\t\tHeadliners include Magdalena Bay, Cuco and Aly & AJ\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t \n\t\t\t\t\tClarice Lam joins Kaya staff, and more Orlando restaurant news\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t \n\t\t\t\t\tAfter dark, things get distinctly naughty for Santa\u2019s devious Euro counterpart\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n This article appears in Dec. 3-9, 2025<\/a>.<\/p>\n \n\tRelated\n<\/p>\n \t
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