The Wavys opens The Wavy World Tour on Saturday with Wavy Award winners Ladibree and James Ian, and a plan to bring adoptee stories and local artists to every stop.
James Ian is taking Amtrak from New York to Washington for the first show of a tour designed to travel by rail. The Wavy World Tour, organized by the New York music nonprofit The Wavys, opens Saturday, Oct. 10, with James Ian and fellow Wavy Award winner Ladibree. Impress, an independent pop artist from New York City who plays Washington on Friday night, will open the show. Co-founder Rebecca Autumn Sansom built The Wavys on one rule: artists know best.
Capital Pride Alliance, the Washington-based nonprofit that produces the city’s annual Pride celebration, and Pride365 Radio are media sponsors for the launch. Ryan Bos, the alliance’s CEO and president, will be on site Saturday, and Pride365 Radio has been talking up the show on air ahead of the event.
Saturday’s free show takes place at the O Museum in The Mansion, 2020 O St. NW, a Dupont Circle landmark known for its hidden doors. Organizers say nearly everything on display is for sale. Ladibree, a rapper, and James Ian, a singer-songwriter, will play sets and talk about how to build what organizers call a Wavy World. The night also doubles as the shoot for the tour’s first filmed chapter. The long-term plan sends pop stars and independent artists west by passenger rail, with performances at venues near station stops and on the trains.
The idea came out of the ceremony itself. The sixth annual Wavy Awards filled Love’s Club in Bushwick on Sept. 5, with support from the New York City Mayor’s Office of Media and Entertainment. Sansom has watched that room for years, and the same thought kept returning.
“Every year at the ceremony, I watch our community lift each other up, and I kept thinking about how much the rest of the country could use that right now,” she said. “So many people feel divided and worn down.”
“A train slows you down in the best way”
When I asked Sansom why the tour runs on rail, she started with pace.
“A train slows you down in the best way,” she said. “You actually see the country between stops, and you meet the people sitting next to you.”
She also called rail cleaner and more accessible, and “a piece of shared public infrastructure, which fits who we are.” Sansom said a couple of passenger rail groups are close to formalizing support.
James Ian, who is based in Brooklyn, lives with spinal muscular atrophy and uses a wheelchair. His song “SPACES,” about looking past disability, won the Wavy Award for music video of the year in 2022.
Sansom wants each stop to book local artists and leave time to hear what that town cares about.
“The music is fun and brings people together, but the real moment is when strangers start talking and realize how much they have in common,” she said.
“There’s healing in being heard”
The tour carries a second mission stemming from Sansom’s own life. She is an adoptee and an advocate for adoptee rights. Her documentary “Reckoning with the Primal Wound” follows her search for her birth mother. Along the route, The Wavys plans to document and share stories from adoptees and their families.
“As an adoptee, I know how much of our story gets told for us, or not told at all,” she said. “There’s healing in being heard.”
A tour about connection and belonging, she said, “felt incomplete without making room for people who’ve had to fight for both.”
Sansom said Wavy supporters funded the D.C. launch through Booster Tickets sold at the September ceremony, and RSVPs started coming in as soon as the event went live. Admission is free with an RSVP, but the event listing says donors of any amount get priority entry, and the organization is still raising money to keep the tour going.
Supporters can also buy Glitter memberships at $250 a year, which place buyers among the “Wavy 100.” According to tour materials, the money covers artist stipends at every stop, travel and production for a small team, creative projects by Wavy ambassadors and a real-world community for adoptees.
The launch lands in the capital a little more than three weeks before the Nov. 3 midterm elections.
“Launching in the nation’s capital ahead of the midterms also says something: we can lead with music and kindness instead of division,” she said.
From Washington, Sansom said, The Wavys will build the partnerships needed to take the tour across the country, one stop at a time.
The Wavy World Tour launches Saturday, Oct. 10 live at the O Museum in The Mansion, 2020 O St. NW. Admission is free with an RSVP on Luma, and donors receive priority entry.
Editor’s note: James Rashad serves on the board of The Wavys.
