The return of the three-day Essence Music Festival to New Orleans for the first time since Hurricane Katrina is an occasion performers and fans alike say is cause for celebration.

It's "a homecoming, a reunion," said Lionel Richie, who performed at the festival in 2005 -- just weeks before Katrina struck the Gulf Coast on Aug. 29, 2005, flooding 80 percent of New Orleans.

The festival, which runs Thursday through Saturday, had been held in New Orleans over the Fourth of July weekend since its launch in 1995. Last year it was moved to Texas because of Katrina.

Richie is among the dozens of hip-hop, R&B and gospel artists slated to perform this year.

"I would have played in New Orleans no matter what," said Richie, who performs Saturday, the festival's closing day.

He also was among the headline performers in the first New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival after Katrina in the spring of 2006.

"The incentive for coming is what the city is going through," he said. "I can't imagine a city with that much life in it dying."

Among the others performing this year are The O'Jays with Keith Sweat and Johnny Gill, Ludacris, Ciara, Beyonce, Robin Thicke, Mary J. Blige, Chris Brown and Kelly Rowland.

Besides the music, Essence will host free, daily "empowerment" seminars with top voices in the black community tackling social issues. For example, Public Enemy's Chuck D is a rapper and hip-hop statesman slated to participate in a panel discussion on Saturday.

Democratic presidential hopeful Illinois Sen. Barack Obama confirmed an appearance the opening night of the festival on Thursday. He is slated to take the stage after 10 p.m. during the concert portion of the festival.

The concerts are being held at the Louisiana Superdome, while the empowerment seminars are being held at the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center. Both buildings sheltered masses after Katrina, and storm damage left the buildings incapable of hosting the 2006 music festival, which was moved to Houston's Reliant Park.

The Superdome reopened in September 2006 after a $185 million renovation and conventions and meetings have returned to the Morial center.

Essence recently agreed to a deal to keep it in the city through 2009.

------

Associated Press writer Chevel Johnson contributed to this report.

(Copyright 2007 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)