Your Brooklyn Weekend: Jul 10–12

The forecast for the weekend: hot outside, hotter at Baby's All Right, with an emo aftershock still ringing from earlier in the week. Here's where to point your feet between Friday and Sunday.

Friday, Jul 10 — Toubab Krewe at Baby's All Right (146 Broadway, Williamsburg) Start the weekend with a passport. Toubab Krewe, the Asheville, North Carolina instrumental crew, built their name fusing West African string traditions — think kora and kamele ngoni — with rock muscle and jam-band elasticity. It's music that rewards a room that likes to move, and Baby's ~280-capacity back room is exactly the sweaty, up-close setting where their grooves land hardest. No lyrics to sing along to; just a locked-in band and a floor that won't stay still. If your idea of a Friday night is dancing to something you can't quite categorize — West African trance one minute, guitar-forward rock the next — this is your ticket. Get there early; the restaurant up front means you can eat before the room fills, and this room fills.

Sunday, Jul 12 — India Shawn with nnena at Baby's All Right (146 Broadway, Williamsburg) Sundays were made for soul, and India Shawn brings it. The R&B singer trades in the kind of warm, unhurried, feelings-forward songwriting that has earned her a devoted following and a reputation as one of contemporary soul's most quietly assured voices. Opening the night is nnena, an R&B/soul artist rounding out a bill that should turn Baby's into the coziest room in the borough. It's the kind of low-key, high-feeling Sunday show that sends you home slow and satisfied instead of wired — the perfect counterweight to Friday's dance floor. Come for the goosebumps; stay for the encore glow.

The midweek lead-in: American Football with Fantasy Of A Broken Heart at Music Hall of Williamsburg (66 N 6th St, Williamsburg; Tue, Jul 7) Yes, it already happened — but no weekend rundown is complete without acknowledging the emo touchstone that kicked off the week. American Football, the Illinois band whose 1999 self-titled debut became a genre-defining sacred text of twinkly guitars and aching restraint, brought their unmistakable sound to a Music Hall of Williamsburg now living on borrowed time (the room closes at the end of 2026). Support came from Fantasy Of A Broken Heart. There's a poetry to it, too: a band built on nostalgia and longing, playing a room the whole borough is about to feel nostalgic and longing for. If you caught it, you caught a beloved band in a beloved room during its farewell year — the kind of show people will claim they were at whether or not they actually were. If you didn't — well, that's what the rest of this weekend is for.

Three nights, one borough, and a reminder that the best Brooklyn weekends don't stick to a single genre. Go get lost in a groove.

Sources: Baby's All Right gigography — Songkick; Music Hall of Williamsburg gigography — Songkick