Free OSU Concert Honors Shuttered South Side Icons Like Golden Donuts

A free concert at Ohio State University next week will turn the memory of shuttered South Side Columbus businesses into music, poetry and dance. Southern Oracles: A Celebration of the South Side takes place September 1 at Weigel Hall, honoring neighborhood institutions including Golden Donuts, Mae's Market and Boyd's Barbershop through a program that blends jazz, hip-hop, classical music and spoken word.

The tribute carries extra weight for one of its subjects. Golden Donuts & Diner, a fixture at 1928 Lockbourne Road for more than 30 years, closed suddenly in July after the location was put up for commercial lease, according to Hoodline. As reported by WOSU Public Media, the free, one-night concert uses music and poetry to celebrate the South Side's historically and artistically rich, vibrant and diverse character, weaving in tributes to businesses that have already disappeared from the neighborhood.

Mae's Market, another business named in the performance, served for years as a neighborhood grocer and a central touchstone of daily life on the South Side, according to community recollections shared on Facebook. The concert's producer, poet and writer Scott Woods, said the project is meant to document the South Side's heritage as Columbus barrels toward 1 million residents, ensuring that institutions built by local residents get recorded in the city's history, per the Ohio State Office of Academic Affairs. Woods has noted that the South Side experiences constant cultural flux as the city expands.

A Nonprofit Built to Preserve Black Culture in Columbus

Southern Oracles is presented by the Johnstone Fund for New Music alongside Streetlight Guild and Ohio State's Office of the Vice Provost for the Arts, part of the university's ongoing free contemporary music programming. Streetlight Guild, the Near East Side arts nonprofit at 1367 E. Main Street that Woods founded in 2019 with philanthropist Glen Kizer, is dedicated to preserving original Columbus culture and supporting underrepresented voices, according to The Lantern. The nonprofit grew out of a 2017 monthlong Black arts festival called Holler, the paper reports.

The Johnstone Fund for New Music, meanwhile, regularly grants funds to make contemporary local music accessible across Columbus. The fund also co-sponsors contemporary ensemble performances at other city venues, a pattern Hoodline detailed in coverage of Short North Stage's 15th season.

An Ohio State Professor With Hip-Hop Roots

Among the performers is Dr. Jason Rawls, an assistant professor of hip-hop at Ohio State University who performs as J Rawls, described by WOSU as a musician, DJ and academic. Rawls gained national hip-hop prominence producing for Black Star in 1998 and later co-founded the group Liquid Crystal Project, coining the genre term Jazz Hop, according to Ohio State's School of Music. He holds a doctorate in education and has produced tracks for Mos Def and Talib Kweli.

Rawls' presence at Southern Oracles fits a broader pattern of community-building work in Columbus. He also partnered with Land-Grant Brewing Co. to launch Salve!, a global music event designed to cultivate the city's local DJ and nightlife culture, a partnership that Hoodline's coverage of Ohio State's 2025 Wolstein Summit highlighted.

A Multi-Genre Lineup and Free Admission

The September 1 concert features a multi-genre cast of more than a dozen performers, including the Mark Lomax Trio, Liquid Crystal Project, DJ Prime, Trista Hill, Sam Johnson, Jai Carey, Psyonik and Donald Isom, per the Ohio State Office of Academic Affairs. Musical artist and rapper Trek Manifest also appears in the lineup, according to WOSU. The performance is free and open to the public, taking place in Weigel Auditorium on the second floor of Weigel Hall at 1866 College Road North on Ohio State's main campus near the Oval.

Visitor parking is available at the adjacent Ohio Union South Garage and Arps Garage. The concert's timing follows continued transformation on the South Side, where the 19-to-20-acre Rambling House South riverfront venue project was slated to break ground along South High Street this summer, Hoodline previously reported, with plans for an amphitheater, canoe livery and outdoor music stages near the Scioto River.

It remains unclear how many of the historic South Side businesses commemorated in Southern Oracles are still operating today, and organizers have not said whether the performance will be archived or preserved beyond the single night at Weigel Hall.