Print edition: 
The Black Arts Festival is a community get-together and a great place for food, but it's also a place to watch ambition in the flesh.
Every year, the festival puts on a serious talent show that could be called "Wichita's Got Talent."
By serious, we mean teenagers with their own songs, their own YouTube videos and their own websites.
On Saturday afternoon, the acts each had about five minutes, enough time for a song and a little by-play with the crowd.
The draw was the crucial word-of-mouth credibility one gets from a great performance. Some had performed for years around Wichita, in churches, at clubs or at parties, while others were newcomers.
Shae Nichols, 16, Danielle Jones, 15, and Cierra Smith, 17, sashayed energetically, sang and rapped through a song Jones wrote.
"Watch me do my Wilson. Watch me my Wilson. I'm getting on the Wilson. Cris-cross, now back it up. Now, watch me do my Wilson," they sang.
It's a song and dance they wrote called "Little Wilson." The title comes from a minor character on Tyler Perry's "Medea Goes to Jail."
They're being managed by Gail Anderson, Jones' mother, who also manages festival performer JoVaughn, whose career is really gaining speed, she said.
D'Shae is just trying to start moving up the slippery slope to stardom. Older and more established are P.C. Patton and Tim Henderson, who sing a mixture of rap, rhythm and blues, and gospel. They had been around for years, had tasted of success in places such as New York and Chicago, but were now back in Wichita singing in front of their devoted followers.
"If you love Jesus, say 'Yeah!" Patton shouted from the stage.
"Yeah!," shouted back the audience.
They'll be headliners at today's gospel show.
"It's going to be the grand finale," Patton said, as he took pats and handshakes after getting off stage. "This is just the icebreaker."
There were plenty of others, 20 in all, before the name acts came on in the evening.
Running the show was Charles Coleman, the local music impresario who has run the talent show at the festival for 15 years. He picks the strongest acts to perform in the show and may push them higher, if he can.
He has national contacts in the world of entertainment, he said, and promoted a lot of talented kids from Wichita. A few have made it as far as a major label record contract in New York, he said.
"We've got the talent here," Coleman said. "It's my job to program it and push it out."
