Thursday Night in Chelsea: CBGB Music and Film Festival presents Billy Idol, Walking Papers, Ex-Cops and Skins at Center 548

(Videos courtesy shutterhound) (Videos courtesy Andrew Sklover)

Saturday in Fort Greene: The Ninth Annual AfroPunk Fest in Commodore Barry Park

(Video courtesy WhoIsMartymar)

This weekend, the ninth annual Afropunk Festival again took over Commodore Barry Park in Brooklyn to showcase dozens of artists of color, spread across genres from thrash hardcore to ultra-current hip-hop, from New Orleans bounce to good time soul review. As always, from entry to exit, it's about the best-run festival the city has to offer: pleasant, on-time, easy to move around within. You can easily catch at least a portion of every artists' set, while still having time to grab a bite or a beer, participate in some sort of extreme sport, or just people-watch at one of the most vibrant fashion weekends of the year. . . A big music event in Brooklyn where no one played a cheesy hits medley! Where the performances didn't leave you feeling kind of gross and sad and too old to be witnessing them! Imagine...

- Jeff Klingman at The L Magazine

(Videos courtesy LarryRulz) (Videos courtesy Zerina Phillip) (Video courtesy pristafari) (Video courtesy WhipNYC) (Video courtesy Tracey Brickhouse) (Video courtesy Foundtrack) (Video courtesy Preppy Ken Ken) (Video courtesy Ava Fedorov) (Video courtesy PrimeminiBeats) (Video courtesy diffstrokes24) (Video courtesy Ty Rock) (Video courtesy djBTips) (Video courtesy Zerina Phillip) (Video courtesy djBTips)

Saturday in Fort Greene/Brooklyn Navy Yard: The 2012 Afropunk Festival at Commodore Barry Park

We were lucky enough to spend most of the afternoon and evening at the 2012 Afropunk Festival at Commodore Barry Park and we saw so many amazing shows

- from the Skins and the Joe Jordan Experiment (his mom is a great drummer) and Ninjasonik early this afteroon to the Memorials and Das Racist and Erykah Badu with the Cannabinoids and surprise, Yaslin Bey (Mos Def), tonight - and other stuff,

watched the creation of street art and the daredevils at the skate park, hung out with incredibly cool people, had some really good snacks at the food trucks,

and generally such a terrific time on our last real summer weekend before going back to work that we don't know whether to scream or to eat a banana.