You’re invited to The West Baton Rouge Museum on Friday, August 21, 2026 from 6 - 8 PM for a special edition of their monthly Historical Happy Hour series as we celebrate the Free As They Want to Be: Artists Committed to Memory exhibit with spoken word and music featuring poet and visual artist, Malaika Favorite.
This evening experience includes moving words that will captivate the audience, an intermission where guests can explore contemporary art inspired by historical memory, and live music.
As with all programming being held in conjunction with Free as They Want to Be, this event will be open to all with no admission fees.
ABOUT MALAIKA FAVORITE
A longtime Baton Rouge Gallery Artist Member, Malaika Favorite works in a variety of different media, allowing her flexibility based on the nature and purpose of the work. In recent years, Favorite has experimented with an assortment of surface treatments and forms to create eye-catching two-dimensional works that move beyond the typical square or rectangular frame of a single piece. Within a single series, she may employ canvas, wood, metal, and more to create an elaborate assortment of shapes.
Favorite’s artwork has been featured in Samella Lewis’ African American Art and Artist and Art: African American; Bernardine B. Proctor’s Black Art in Louisiana, and The St. James Guide to Black Artists, by Thomas Riggs. Her works can be found in a number of notable collections including that of Absolut Vodka, The Morris Museum of Art (Augusta, GA), The Alexandria Museum of Art (Alexandria, LA), The Coca Cola Company (Atlanta, GA), and The National Underground Railroad Freedom Center (Cincinnati, OH).
In 2023, Favorite was commissioned to create large-scale murals for the entrance to Tiana’s Bayou Adventure at both Walt Disney World (Orlando, FL) and Disneyland (Anaheim, CA). Learn more
As a child, Favorite was the first student to integrate public schools in Ascension Parish when she volunteered to transfer to an all-white high school. In 2019, she recounted the experience to Country Roads Magazine, saying, “Several students wanted to go, but mine were the only parents who said yes. ... It was a scary thing, but I wasn’t gonna leave the school. I wasn’t the smartest student, but I thought I had as much right to go there as anybody else.”
