Congo Sanchez will perform at tomorrow’s National Cannabis Festival, taking place at RFK Stadium.

D.C. world music trio Congo Sanchez has had a busy month. Several days after returning from Jaco, Costa Rica, where the band headlined the March beachside Jungle Jam Festival, its members embarked again in early April on a two-week tour out West with stops in Durango and Denver and across Wyoming and Montana.

This Saturday, just after returning home, Congo Sanchez will play one of D.C.’s largest stages at RFK Stadium, opening for hometown go-go heroes Backyard Band and New York hip-hop legends De La Soul at the inaugural National Cannabis Festival. In addition to the concert at the stadium’s Festival Grounds, the event will feature an education pavilion and fairs for vendors and advocacy groups.

Drummer and producer Jeff Franca (also the drummer for D.C.’s Thievery Corporation), known onstage as Congo, views the festival as an opportunity to celebrate a drug that he says is beneficial but has been branded as harmful.

“The feeling you get when you get arrested is terrible, and over what? Non-violent crime, where you’re really smoking something that’s actually beneficial for many things. If you ask me, that is a very good reason to play a concert, is to rid the world of these vibes,” he says.

Congo Sanchez comprises Congo, singer Haile Supreme (Abbay Misganaw) and emcee Flex Mathews. Congo started the project in 2012 with what he describes as a collection of rare grooves and original beats. Mathews, an established local rapper, joined Congo for his second show, and Supreme began playing with them after he introduced himself at a performance at Eighteenth Street Lounge.

The group blends its members’ reggae, funk, hip-hop, and jazz influences, giving their music a global feel. This sound, coupled with their use of electronic rhythms from various genres, led them to choose their given name, says Congo.

After two years of touring and playing around D.C., Congo Sanchez released its first full-length album, Dealin’ With This, in November of 2014. The politically charged record addresses racism, police brutality and gentrification, among other topics. Its cover—an illustration of the trio standing before protesters at the U.S. Capitol—speaks for their focus on current events at the time of its release, says Supreme.

“It really encapsulates the influences behind what was happening around us when the music was being made,” he says. “Everything was very tense and they were announcing people being shot like it’s the weather.”

The group has retained a focus on activism when traveling. On the most recent tour, they collaborated with Boulder, Colo.-based Green Dream Clothing Co., which designed a shirt for the band to be sold at shows. For every one sold, the company plants a tree, according to Congo.

In their time together, all three members say they have grown in their own respective ways. For Mathews, playing with the band has helped him channel more intensity into his performances. “The punk rockers that I grew up watching on TV, and the emotion that they conveyed, I feel like I can do that now with this band,” he says.

Congo has been happy to watch his once-fledgling project grow while collaborating with Mathews and Supreme. “I’m not a solo type of dude. I’m about the bigger picture,” he says.

That focus on the so-called bigger picture, what Supreme describes as the band’s overall presence and sound onstage, has been instrumental for the vocalist, the youngest among the three. “[It’s] the awareness and cognizance that you get from messing up and learning and just watching other people. It’s like having two older brothers on stage,” he says.

Looking ahead to their performance this Saturday, Mathews eagerly awaits the chance to share a stage with the headliners in front of a hometown crowd. “To bring the music back home, that’s always a goal of mine,” he says. “Being on stage with legends in front of my peers and OG people who I pay homage to in the city, rappers, and musicians who will be there, to me that means a lot.”

The chance to advocate for cannabis legalization on stage is an important component for Supreme. “Cannabis is kind of like music,” he says. “It’s something that can unify the people and…more importantly, gives medicine to the people.”

The fact that the inaugural festival is taking place in the nation’s capital is an added bonus, says Supreme. “Being that we’re in D.C., you know, the capital, it’s a gut punch that we’re sending ‘em, right in the middle,” he says.

The inaugural National Cannabis Festival takes place this Saturday, April 23, from 12-8p.m. at RFK Stadium. Tickets $35