Overview Taste of Soul is a free one-day street festival that fills nearly three miles of Crenshaw Boulevard in South Los Angeles with soul food, three live music stages and free health screenings, job recruitment and voter registration for the neighborhood. It runs on a Saturday in October from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. and calls itself a party with a purpose. Civil rights leader Danny J. Bakewell Sr. founded it, and Bakewell Media and the Los Angeles Sentinel, the oldest Black-owned newspaper on the West Coast, produce it. On site More than 350 vendors line the boulevard, from food trucks and local names such as Dulan's, Harold and Belle's and Hugh's Hot Bowls to art, jewelry, clothing and beauty sellers. R&B, soul, gospel and hip-hop play on three stages, among them the Sounds of the Soul stage and the Brenda Marsh-Mitchell Gospel Stage. St. John's Community Health presents Children's World, with games, sensory-friendly activities and free eye and dental exams, and health providers run screenings, benefits enrollment and first aid along the route. Audience The crowd is the Sentinel's own community: a readership that is 95% Black, from Crenshaw, Leimert Park, Baldwin Hills, Inglewood and across Los Angeles County. Families come for Children's World and grandparents for the gospel stage. Online, the festival's audience is 53% women, and 35 to 44 year olds engage most. Talent and Influencers Stevie Wonder, Brandy, Teddy Riley, Chante Moore, Cameo, The Whispers, Montell Jordan, Estelle and Karen Clark Sheard have all played the festival. Thelma Houston, Switch and Midnight Star have headlined the Sounds of the Soul stage, joined by Tony Cornelius and the Soul Train Dancers. Tiffany Haddish has served as celebrity chair, and Mayor Karen Bass has walked the boulevard. Track record The first festival drew about 35,000 people to the block outside the Sentinel's office. It now draws more than 400,000 a year and has hosted over 3 million people in all. Together with the Sentinel's Martin Luther King Day parade it has brought more than $50 million in sales to local businesses, and some vendors have used it to open storefronts. The corner of Crenshaw and Obama boulevards now carries the name Danny Bakewell Square. Brand presence SoCalGas, St. John's Community Health, Chevrolet, Wells Fargo, Chase, Amgen and the California Teachers Association lead the sponsor list. Chevrolet backs the Sounds of the Soul stage and Kaiser Permanente is the main medical provider, with Airbnb, Bank of America, UCLA Health, Cedars-Sinai and U.S. Bank also on board. Brands buy stage and pavilion sponsorships, booths and activations, plus ads in the Sentinel's print paper, website and newsletters.