Inside Diamon Fisher’s Exalted

Photography by Barrington Darrius

JBW was honored to witness the sixth annual Exalted, a Juneteenth celebration unlike any other. Founded by Diamon Fisher, the event brought together gospel, jazz, style, and community in downtown Baltimore, where Black joy and legacy took center stage.

In Baltimore, where rowhomes stretch like verses and history runs deep in the soil, Exalted rises each Juneteenth as both a celebration and a reckoning. The annual jazz and gospel festival, founded by cultural producer and strategist Diamon Fisher, is a declaration of presence, joy and time reclaimed.

Since its founding in 2019, Exalted has grown from a modest gathering fueled by $200 and pure conviction into a full-scale production drawing national attention. "I was pregnant with my first son when I launched the first one," Fisher remembers. "It was just me, a vision, and this sense that something beautiful could come from creating space for Black folks to feel free, together." Now in its sixth year, the event blends gospel, jazz, fashion, and communal joy in a way that feels both sacred and defiant.

Founder, Diamon Fisher

This year’s Exalted took place at the newly restored M&T Bank Exchange in downtown Baltimore, a venue that mirrors the spirit of the event itself: rooted in history but reimagined for a new generation. Set beneath soaring ceilings and framed by exposed brick, the space carried elegance and mood, thanks in part to the blue lights that cast the venue in midnight-blue-hue. Guests moved through curated experiences, live portrait sketches, a reading nook co-hosted by Wax Poetics, and cocktails crafted with care, each detail a quiet gesture of reverence and joy. 

This year's edition featured a headline performance from Grammy-nominated artist Bilal, whose genre-blurring voice has long been a vessel for truth and transformation. "Black performance has always been more than entertainment, it's been survival, truth-telling, and healing," he says. His new track, Quantum Universe, debuted during Exalted, extending that legacy. "It's about change. About creating the world you'd like to exist in."

That act of imagining forward is core to Fisher's philosophy. Exalted is a blueprint for the future. It began from a place of sincerity, not corporate sponsors. It takes place in elevated venues not historically accessible to Black joy, and yet it never loses its grassroots heart. "Seeing it evolve from a rowhome to a refined experience, something luxurious and iconic, has been one of the most powerful shifts," Fisher says. "It's become prolific."

West Baltimore Mass Choir led by Cheyanne Zadia

For Jessi Jacq, JBW's Creative Director, the night exceeded expectations:

"I had such a great time at the event… I was not expecting it to look like what I walked into. The energy in the place was so good. It gave gala. Bilal was just the icing on the cake… I've never seen a man be a human trumpet."

Bilal wearing Coast in Silver

But the scale isn't what defines Exalted. It's the intention. Juneteenth has always been about more than emancipation. It’s about authorship. Who gets to write the story of liberation, and how does that story sound when sung in gospel harmony or shouted over jazz horns? "Black music has always played a role in our freedom," Bilal says. "I see my work as part of that continuum."

In Baltimore, a city so often flattened in the national imagination, Fisher's work insists on fullness. "Carving out space to exalt Black joy here means deliberately creating and protecting moments that affirm the richness, resilience, and beauty of Black life," she explains. And her community has responded in kind, growing the event alongside her, year after year. People travel from across the country now, drawn not just to the performances but to the spirit. It feels like coming home to a future we're still writing.

"I'm building something that's meant to last—not just in success, but in significance," Fisher says. "A legacy my children can grow with. Something generations from now can carry forward—not just because of what it provides, but because of what it represents."

And that's the real work of timekeeping: not just marking hours or anniversaries but building something worthy of the time that was stolen and the time that still lies ahead.

Arc Single and Arc Double in Crystal Gold