Local rapper Chachi Carvalho performs on the Hot 106 stage behind the Black Rep on Friday.

The Providence Journal / Glenn Osmundson

Providence’s annual SoundSession Festival kicks off today, treating Rhode Island music fans to a week of performances in many different kinds of music, from hip-hop and jazz to Brazilian and funk — and more. Much of the festival is held outdoors, and much of it is free — including most of the biggest names.

It’s a co-production of the Providence Black Repertory Company and the City of Providence’s Department of Arts, Culture and Tourism, and their directors — Donald W. King and Lynne McCormack, respectively — say there are a few changes this year.

The most important, they say, is the addition of new venues. There will be performances all week at various clubs in and around the city, from rock to spoken-word, which allows more local groups to play. There will be stages at The Blackstone, in Pawtucket; Firehouse 13, Jerky’s, Tazza, the Trinity Brew Pub and more in Providence.

“We’ve always wanted to do it,” McCormack says of expanding the festival, “but this year they’re completely on board, and they’re all really excited.”

Another difference is the Friday-night concert at the Providence Performing Arts Center, which is recent years has featured classic soul groups such as The Spinners. They haven’t sold well, however, and as the groups age, a lot of replacement members have crept into the lineups.

“We’d get The Four Tops and you’d get a Top,” King says; “we’d get The Spinners and you’d get a Spinner.”

This year, Friday night’s PPAC show features 112, the smooth R&B vocal group who was one of the first signings to Puff Daddy’s Bad Boy label and is best known for its hits “Cupid” and “Only You.”

The festival is a little earlier this year, as well, because “that third week in July (the usual SoundSession slot) was a big vacation week,” says King, the Black Rep artistic director .

“We might find that this is a big vacation week, too,” cracks McCormack, who adds that the old dates also conflicted with the Rhode Island Reggae Festival and the East Providence Heritage Festival.

The festival also has a sponsorship from Imeem, the social-networking Web site that festival coordinator Micah Salkind, the Black Rep’s director of public programs, describes as similar to YouTube and MySpace, but “really geared toward music-heads and people making their own art.” Members can post their creative work on the site, and at www.imeem.com/ providencesoundsession they can listen to samples of festival performers.

But all the hallmarks of SoundSession are still in place: a week of performances in a wide range of musical styles, often outdoors in the balmy summer air, and lots of it free.

The festival begins this afternoon with a gospel brunch featuring Trinity Rhode Productions and The RPM Rhode Island Community Mass Choir. In the evening, there’s a spoken-word performance and an after-party with DJ Megatron.

There are free after-work jazz performances at the Black Rep tomorrow through Wednesday, as well as singer-songwriter Eric Roberson tomorrow, reggae from Mighty Mystic and 77klash on Tuesday and Cuban jazz from Carlos de Leon on Wednesday. Thursday’s schedule includes house music from the DJ duo The Martinez Brothers at the Black Rep and a Rhode Island Young Professionals gala at Waterplace Restaurant.

Friday night is when the big guns come out: After the 112 concert, local rapper Chachi takes to the Hot 106 stage behind the Black Rep, followed by the local DJ/rapper duo of Joe Beats and Blak, finishing with the Boston funk of Flipside.

On Saturday night, the action starts in Waterplace Park with free concerts by the young jazz phenom Maurice Brown (“he’s writing what could very well become a new generation of hard-bop-meets-new-grooves standards,” says DownBeat magazine), the vocal-jazz legend Jon Hendricks (of Lambert, Hendricks and Ross) and the Cape Verdean music of Rhode Island’s Stage Groove all-stars.

Then comes the parade. The parade is the linchpin of SoundSession; King has called it “the key to what this is.” At roughly 10 p.m., everyone in Waterplace Park will be invited to march through downtown to the Black Rep for more free performances (including the house music of Wunmi, the New Orleans funk of Trombone Shorty and two steel-drum groups). While anyone can take part, the most visually striking part of the parade is the sight of neighborhood and cultural groups, some of whom have been preparing for the parade for weeks.

Some marchers will be in costumes. Some of those will be of their own design, some made in the mas (short for “masquerade”) camp run by the Black Rep since the beginning of summer, in which people singly or in groups could create their costumes under the guidance of David Alexis, a veteran of similar parades in his native Trinidad.

And as always, King says, the key is in the mix — the mix of music, the mix of cultures, the mix of people having a good time. It reflects the city’s diversity and, he hopes, nudges it along.

“My mantra this year is ‘One Nation Under a Groove,’ ” King says, referring to the George Clinton song. “Specifically because we have more than 20 participating venues, and because we have more genres being represented, and more local bands participating than ever before. So that is the beauty of that. We’re gonna have this whole city united for a week of great music.”

For a full schedule of SoundSession events, go to www.providencesoundsession.com.