Chicago-based rappers Chance The Rapper and Vic Mensa announced the formation of the Black Star Line Festival over the weekend. The announcement was made in front of the Ghanaian fashion collective Free The Youth's flagship store.

"When Vic and I started our careers and started touring, we did shows all over the U.S.," Chance said in a statement. "Eventually we started touring in Europe [and] we did shows in Asia, South America, Central America, but we never had a chance to play our music for the people who support us the most. When we came here and touched down and felt the love that we received and the fans that we got to connect with, the understanding for the need for the connection became apparent to us. We need a music festival bringing major artists to Ghana. This is what we’re working to create.”

Chance continued by saying he hopes the festival will promote connectivity across the Diaspora.

"We see the biggest artist in the world coming down for a shared experience," he said. "We see 38,000 people, a sea of Black folks standing out there in Black Star Square on January 6th. Everything we are doing is with the goal of uniting and building a bridge between Black people of the diaspora of the globe with the continent and Ghana is the gateway to all of that."

The duo's stated goal is a connected global network of Black people from Ghana to Nigeria, Burkina Faso down to South Africa to Brazil, the Islands, the U.S. and the U.K.