Every June, the Croisette transforms. What is ordinarily a sun-drenched stretch of the French Riviera becomes the global headquarters of creative commerce, a place where brand strategy gets debated over rosé, where culture gets packaged into activations, and where the most important conversations happen not on the Palais stages but in the rooms, boats, and beach houses that surround them.
Last week, No Wahala was there. All five days.
For a podcast built at the intersection of diaspora culture, Black excellence, and global conversation, Cannes Lions was not simply a festival. It was confirmation. The rooms we entered, the tables we sat at, and the people we shared space with told a story about where diaspora media now stands in the broader creative and commercial landscape. We documented the whole week!
Monday, June 17 - Arrivals and First Impressions
The week opened at The Carlton Hotel, where we moved between TikTok's Garden Oasis and LinkedIn's Black Joy Brunch occupying the same iconic building from different angles. TikTok had transformed the Carlton's main garden into one of the most talked-about activations on the Croisette: a parametric, wave-inspired structure built around creator workshops, product showcases, and daily Frosé Soirées that pulled the entire festival through its doors. As invited guests across TikTok's full week of programming, we were present for soooo much!
From The Carlton, we made our way to Palais Stephanie for the Wieden + Kennedy x Spotify event, where DJ Mick set the tone for what would become a recurring theme throughout the week. Music, culture, and commerce were inseparable from one another. Group Black's Toast at Inkwell Beach followed, a gathering that felt like a declaration. Meta Beach and Dentsu House rounded out the evening, and by the time Monday closed, the week had announced exactly what it intended to be.
Sports Beach by Stagwell ran as a constant thread throughout the festival, a daily destination for panels spanning athletes, brand strategy, equity in sport, and the future of entertainment. We returned throughout the week.
Tuesday, June 18 - Deep in the Circuit
By the second day the week had found its rhythm. Back at the TikTok Garden, the programming was in full swing: creator workshops ran in silent-rave format, with participants moving through hands-on sessions led by top TikTok creators, headphones on, the Carlton garden buzzing around them. Panels on Creative Bravery and the future of content creation drew rooms full of CMOs and agency leaders. The Fit Check activation near the entrance had already become the Garden's most photographed moment.
Kevin Liles and Unik Ernest hosted the Hip-Hop Throwback Party at La Fama that evening, a night that needed no justification beyond itself. Earlier, Tiffany Warren extended an invitation to AdColor at Whalar House on Cabana Row, a panel conversation that grounded the more celebratory moments of the week in something more substantial. AdWeek House at Hotel 3.14 offered a different register: strategy, data, the mechanics of the industry. We returned to Pinterest and Meta Beach, because the programming seemed to be strong on Day 1, and many mutual friends were there recharding throughout the day!
Wednesday, June 19 - The Day the Week Peaked
If there was a single day that captured what No Wahala's presence at Cannes means, it was June 19th. The date was not incidental. Juneteenth on the Croisette, with Black culture at the center of the industry's biggest conversations, carried a weight that everyone in the room understood.
The day began at the Brands + Culture Villa, where /prompt. Assembly hosted their Kickback, a gathering that felt closer to the spirit of Cannes than most official programming. Through the afternoon, TikTok's Garden continued to draw an extraordinary crowd. JB Smoove, Jessica Alba, and Travis Kelce all moved through the Carlton space that day, a signal of what TikTok's Cannes presence had become: not just an industry activation, but a genuine cultural destination. We watched the Garden shift from strategy sessions and product demos by day to vibrant evening programming as the lighting transformed and the music took over.
From there, we were our way to Influential Beach for Urban One's "Luda Day," presented by Brand Innovators. Urban One Group CEO David Kantor invited us to watch CEO Alfred Liggins sit down with Ludacris for a one-on-one conversation about Black excellence, representation, and the culture's role as a global catalyst. Ludacris spoke plainly: "We are the culture." He reflected on starting his career as a DJ on an Urban One-owned station, calling the moment a full circle. We had been personally invited by Chaka Zulu, Ludacris's manager, and arrived alongside Anthony Anderson and Kevin Liles.
That evening, Ludacris took the stage for a full hour. He performed chart-topping hits including "Yeah" and "All We Do Is Win," with DJ Trauma holding the room between sets. The night's standout moment came when Carmelo Anthony joined Ludacris on stage for a duet, with Anthony Anderson and JB Smoove among those who stopped by to close out the night. Choosing Juneteenth as the date for that gathering was a statement. Urban One understood it. So did the room.
DJ D Nice locked in Club Quarantine at Bisous Bisous that evening. Then Gary Vaynerchuk extended an invitation to VaynerX Marks The Spot at Port de Cannes, a boat party that ran as long as the night allowed.
Thursday, June 20 - Artists, Athletes, and a Night to Remember
The pace shifted on Thursday, but the connections deepened. TikTok's programming pulled us back to The Carlton for more panel sessions and client conversations, and it was through the platform's artist network that the day opened its most meaningful door. Mr. Eazi and his manager Joel Borquaye brought us into the Adobe event, a reminder that some of the most significant introductions at Cannes happen through artists rather than agencies. The TikTok and Adobe partnership was the connective tissue behind it all: the two companies had collaborated to integrate Adobe Express with TikTok's Commercial Music Library, and the relationship that made the evening possible ran through that same creative ecosystem.
Thursday evening belonged to The Afties. Hosted by Taylor Rooks and Joy Taylor at Christie Cannes, the inaugural edition of what is already shaping up to be a fixture on the Cannes calendar brought together sports, media, and culture in a room that felt genuinely earned. It was one of the standout nights of the week.
Friday, June 21 - Block Brunch, TikTok x Adobe and the Close
The week closed on two notes. Block Brunch on Miramar Plage offered the first: a celebration that felt like breathing out after five days of constant motion. Then came TikTok and Adobe's closing night at L'Ecrin, the seaside venue where the week ended with sets from Tinashe, Mr. Eazi, and Inji. As invited guests of TikTok's full Cannes programming, being in that room felt earned. The same platform whose Garden we had moved through all week, whose workshops we had sat in, whose cultural footprint had shaped the rhythm of the entire festival, closed it out with a performance that brought everything together.
Tinashe headlined. Her viral moment on TikTok had not been manufactured; it had built through organic creator momentum, and seeing her perform under the Riviera sky, surrounded by industry leaders and creators, was a reminder of what the platform does when it works: it amplifies artistry to audiences that are genuinely ready for it.
What We Took With Us
Cannes Lions 2024 confirmed something No Wahala has known for a long time. Diaspora voices are not peripheral to the creative and commercial conversation. They are central to it. The rooms we were invited into, the people who sought us out, and the conversations that followed us off the Croisette all pointed in the same direction.
TikTok's Garden Oasis at The Carlton was the clearest proof of that. Over the course of the week, the activation engaged thousands of industry leaders across panels, workshops, and private dinners. It was one of the most documented, most discussed, most visited spaces at the entire festival. Across all five days, the programming made the experience one that will be cemented in memory for years to come.
Celebrating Black culture on Juneteenth, on the French Riviera, in a room that included Ludacris, Chaka Zulu, Carmelo Anthony, our brother EJ Wright, Anthony Anderson, Kevin Liles, and JB Smoove, that is the story of where diaspora media stands today.
We had a time! And we'll be back.