Yaya’s Juke Joint revives history, and Fayetteville can't get enough

The band is grooving, the drinks are flowing and the conversation is lively. And the fashion? Impeccable.

You've just entered Yaya's Juke Joint, a buzzy new event series launched by a Fayetteville creative who's using entertainment to preserve the magic of Black history.

Ayana Washington, 37, is the owner of Book Black Women , a nonprofit organization she founded in 2022 to provide more opportunities for Black women in the arts. Through the organization, Washington has hosted a number of cultural experiences that blend education and entertainment.

The most recent feather in her cap is Yaya's Juke Joint.

Yaya's didn't start as a juke joint, though. The first event to use the moniker ("Yaya is my nickname," Washington says) was Yaya's Amateur Night, reminiscent of "Showtime at the Apollo," in spring 2024 at Cape Fear Regional Theatre.

"I had a Sandman, I had a lucky log for people to rub. I had the host, the band, the whole thing," Washington said. "It was so well-received. And so I wanted to build more nostalgic experiences by pulling from our history in different eras."

It wasn't until 2025, however, that Yaya's Juke Joint was born.

By that time, 226 The Warehouse, a downtown event space , had opened, and through her partnership with them, Washington began to envision a new type of event. One of the biggest movies of the year offered some inspiration for what that event might look like.

"I wanted to try a juke joint, and the movie 'Sinners' was so popular," Washington said. "My eyes were wide open, and I wanted to learn more about that era."

"Sinners," starring Michael B. Jordan playing twin gangsters in 1930s Mississippi, was released in April 2025. On its surface, it's a vampire musical, but more than that, it's an examination of the Black experience in the South, with the opening of a juke joint a central plot point.

The movie's popularity — it has a record-breaking 16 Oscar nods , including Jordan for best actor — led to a resurgence of interest in juke joints and their history.

"One of my best friends (Tyanna West) is a Black American historian, and …. we would just have these conversations about the movie, about the era and learning how it came to be in the South, and why people wanted joints and needed them, and how that translates to today," Washington said.

"So I was like, 'The climate today is very similar to what it was back then. We could use those spaces now.' And so juke joint was born."

A brief history of juke joints

Like much of Black American culture, the juke joint emerged from the legacy of slavery, offering a place where Black people could gather, express themselves and reclaim their humanity.

"During chattel enslavement, there were secret, like, 'hush harbors' and different ways that enslaved Africans would go and commune with each other. So it was kind of birthed out of that," said West, Washington's friend who has worked with her on the historical context for Yaya's. She's a public historian and doctoral student in public history at North Carolina State University.

Hush harbors were underground meeting places where enslaved people could gather freely to worship and engage in cultural and religious expression.

Some of those secret gatherings, West said, took the form of juke joints, which began showing up in earnest around southern communities at the turn of the century. Slavery may have ended, but Jim Crow was the law of the land, and Black people needed a place where they could be themselves.

"(Juke joints) served as not only places to go party and dance and eat, but they also served as safe spaces … for Black people to gather after a hard day's work, you know, to let their hair down and be in community and also strategize," West said.

The dawn of the prohibition era, from 1920 to 1933, saw an increase in juke joints, West said.

"Depending on the period, a lot of older folks probably would not be at joints, especially if they were like churchgoers, so they were probably more on the religious side, so they may not have been there, but definitely young, regular folk that are out sharecropping, able-bodied, working class, everyday Black people."

Even Fayetteville got in on the action, with the 400 Club on Murchison Road, Fayetteville's historically Black corridor, being one of the most popular, according to a 2006 Fayetteville Observer story.

Factors like integration and urban migration meant juke joints began a slow decline in the 1960s and '70s, and had all but died out — at least in their historic form — by the beginning of the 21st century.

The impact of these gathering spaces, however, continues to echo throughout the United States today — especially through the music that emerged from them.

"Juke joints were the spaces where blues and jazz started to emerge. It was in those spaces where we have these, especially blues, because I feel like blues is like a very foundationally American tradition that was started by Black folk in the juke joints. So that's definitely a huge impact because blues influences R&B, influences hip hop, influences all of these other genres," West said.

That cultural influence didn't fade with the juke joints. Decades after their heyday, Washington was inspired by that history to bring juke joints back to Fayetteville.

"Even as things evolve in history, there's still a need for safe, Black-owned and women-led spaces," West said. "So what Ayana is doing is so important, not just for the city of Fayetteville, but for our state and for people surrounding our state just to see what it looks like when a Black woman is able to be free to create."

A Juke Joint is born in Fayetteville

The first Yaya's Juke Joint took place Nov. 1 at 226 The Warehouse. Photos and video from the night show a low‑lit room washed in colored lights, couples dancing as a live band plays and guests dressed in period‑inspired costumes.

The attention to detail was deliberate, but the response was unexpected, even for someone like Washington, who is no novice when it comes to event planning.

Yaya's Juke Joint sold out. And it quickly took off on social media.

"It was actually insane," Washington said. "The juke joint is supposed to be like a one-and-done. You know? Just to see how it goes. … I just posted, like, a 10-second clip (on TikTok). And it caught fire, and people were trying to figure out where the space was, where the event was happening, if it was happening every week."

What surprised her most was how quickly that initial reaction snowballed.

"It just kept going because it went viral on TikTok . And people kept reaching out to me wanting not only the juke joint, but other experiences because they enjoyed, of course, dancing and singing, but also learning, like, 'oh, this was created here in the south where we're from. I never even knew because I didn't even know.'"

The Yaya's family

Since that November event, Washington has hosted two more Yaya's Juke Joints, in January and February, and more are on the way.

Attendees can expect live bands, dancing and catered food, and they really lean into the theme. "People dress up," Washington said. "So you'll see 1930s, Southern juke attire."

There are also nods to other traditions tied to historic juke joints. "Sometimes we have a hoodoo woman who sits upstairs and reads cards," Washington said, "since that was a thing in southern juke joints, too."

But not all Yaya's are the same.

Washington introduced Yaya's Muse at Mondrell's Social Lounge earlier in February. Guests at Yaya's Muse can expect a more intimate experience than at the juke joint.

"The Muse is a little more chill because it's more of a jazz night," Washington said. "So far, it's been like a date night. A lot of couples come to that one."

Also new is Yaya's House O' Funk, which Washington launched in February at the Executive Studio in Raeford.

"They wanted the juke joint, but ... I wanted to do something else. And so I sold them on … the 1970s era, where we were tapping into … the Black Rebellion and how funk music helped with that because a lot of resistance was happening within those rooms."

Washington also has plans to bring back the one that started it all — Yaya's Amateur Night. She's partnering with the Cameo Art House Theatre for an event this summer.

Preserving the recipes

Every Yaya's, whether it's Yaya's Juke Joint, Amateur Night, Muse or House O' Funk, seems to strike a chord with the community.

Washington believes the overwhelming response is because of people's hunger to remember and celebrate where they came from.

"I think it's the nostalgia of our cultural practices, and where it doesn't feel like the information that's being given in like a lecture, and people are being entertained, and that's the Black community as a whole," she said. "Well, we learn things through entertainment, through music, through comedy, through dance. So the fact that I'm getting our stories to the next generation through entertainment. I think … people are drawn to that."

That blend of storytelling and celebration helps explain why the pull of Yaya's — particularly the juke joint series — extends beyond nostalgia alone. Washington feels there's a reason it continues to resonate today.

"I think it's important to have these safe spaces because there aren't many of them," she said. "There aren't many places where Black folks feel safe to just be. And that was a conversation Tyanna and I had before I started to push the juke joint. … Why were they building these things? And back in the 1920s? And the reasons we came up with felt very similar to today."

"And even if they don't realize the spaces are needed: They are needed."

Want to go to Yaya's?

Here's when and where you can attend a Yaya's event.

YAYA'S JUKE JOINT

• The Juke Joint is actively searching for a home in the Fayetteville area, Washington said, and details will be released soon at bookblackwomen.org .

• If you're willing to take a short drive up the road to Johnston County, a Yaya's Juke Joint is scheduled for 7:30 p.m. Friday, May 1, at the Clayton Center, 111 E. 2nd St., Clayton. ("The Juke Joint was always intended to grow into a theatrical, tourable production, and May 1 gives us the opportunity to lean fully into that vision," Washington said. "I am developing a script and have hired actresses, including Ty the Historian, to help bring the narrative elements to life. The long-term goal is to tour the production.") Tickets available soon at etix.com/ticket/p/93354906/yayas-juke-joint-clayton-the-clayton-center .

YAYA'S HOUSE O' FUNK

• 7:30 p.m. Saturday, April 25, at the Executive Studio, 253 Flagstone Lane, Raeford. Tickets start at $25 and are available at bookblackwomen.org .

YAYA'S AMATEUR NIGHT

• Saturday, July 11, at Cameo Art House Theatre, 225 Hay St., Fayetteville. Details will be available soon at bookblackwomen.org .

YAYA'S MUSE

• Saturday, March 14, at Mondrell's Social Lounge, 226 Franklin St., Fayetteville. Details will be available soon at bookblackwomen.org .

News Director Beth Hutson can be reached at bhutson@fayobserver.com.

This article originally appeared on The Fayetteville Observer: Yaya's Juke Joint is a new popular event series in Fayetteville