Toppa Top 10: Top Ten Summertime Festivals

Words by Jesse Serwer,  Photo by Martei Korley

With temperatures rising and Memorial Day less than two weeks away, it’s time for a look at some of the biggest reggae/dancehall/Caribbean music-focused festivals happening around the world this summer, from MoBay to Humboldt County. Click through below to get the lineups, details and whereabouts of the season’s biggest outdoor reggae events. Then start making those travel arrangements!

10. Reggae on the River (Benbow Lake, California; July 21-22)

Camping is a must at Reggae on the River, the roots reggae institution that’s been going down on the banks of Humboldt County, California’s Benbow Lake for the past 28 years. Shuttle bus service is provided between the festival grounds and many nearby campsites. Toots and the Maytals top a bill this year that also features Romain Virgo, CeCile, Fantan Mojah, Turbulence, Pato Banton, and Toots’ own son, Junior Toots.

9. Jazz Reggae Festival (Los Angeles; May 27-28)

Highly affordable (you can get tickets for both days for just $50) with a taut roster of just six acts a day this year, UCLA’s Jazz Reggae Fest is one of the more manageable festivals on the summer calendar. Headlining “Jam Day” (May 27) is none other than The Roots, along with Okayplayer favorites Booker T., and Gary Clark, Jr. and Thundercat. Reggae Day follows on the 29th with some of our own LargeUp favorites: Shaggy, Tarrus Riley, Collie Buddz, Alison Hinds.

8. St. Kitts Music Festival (Basseterre, St. Kitts and Nevis; June 28-30)

The St. Kitts Music Festival always brings out big names from both the pop/R&B and Caribbean music worlds. Following soca night featuring Machel Montano and Edwin Yearwood & Krosfyah on June 28, and reggae/dancehall night on June 29, with Popcaan, Damian Marley, I-Octane, Eric Donaldson and Lovindeer, Roberta Flack, Toni Braxton and Omarion are all slated to take the stage on June 30. With no other acts announced yet for the festival’s closing day, expect some more big names to be added, too.

7. Sierra Nevada World Music Festival (Boonville, Calif.; June 22-24)

Two hours south of Reggae on the River in California’s Emerald Triangle, and two hours north of San Francisco, is the Mendocino County Fairgrounds, site of the rugged Sierra Nevada World Music Festival. Jimmy Cliff headlines a lineup filled out with Third World, Israel Vibration, Sister Nancy, Johnny Osbourne and Linton Kwesi Johnson (with the Dennis Bovell Dub Band), among others, plus Stone Love and David Rodigan on the decks.

6. Rototom Sunsplash (Benicassim, Spain; August 16-22)

Originally held at the Rototom Disco Club, in Northern Italy, the family-oriented Rototom Sunplash has settled in Beniccasim, a beach town on Spain’s Costa del Azahar, where it will be held for a third time this year. Performances are just one element of the multi-faceted cultural event, which hosts percussion classes, photo exhibitions, seminars, debates and film screenings, among other community-building events. Beenie Man, Beres, Mykal Rose, Derrick Morgan, Tanya Stephens, Freddie McGregor, Protoje, Marcia Griffiths, Max Romeo, Cultura Profética, The Congos, Linval Thompson, Johnny Osbourne and Calle 13 are all on board this year, but the most intriguing set is likely to come from the combination of Sly & Robbie, Ernest Ranglin and Monty Alexander and Bitty McLean, all slated to perform together on opening night, Aug. 16.

5. Reggae Summerjam (Cologne, Germany; July 6-8)

Once again Cologne’s Reggae Summerjam, now in its 27th year, has put together a diverse lineup that should be as attractive to dancehall fans as it is to roots reggaephiles: Sean Paul, Stephen Marley, Beenie Man, Hollie Cook, Alborosie, Midnite, Assassin, Collie Buddz And. Beyond reggae, there’s also Amadou & Mariam, Nneka, and Blitz the Ambassador. Perhaps the most appealing facet of this fest is it’s location, in beautiful and culturally-rich Cologne.

4. Montreal International Reggae Festival (Montreal, August 17-19)

Popcaan has a Canadian Visa, so the Montreal International Reggae Festival has what all of the other international reggae fests don’t: the most important dancehall star of the moment. The ninth edition of Canada’s top reggae fest will celebrate the 50th anniversary of Jamaican independence with an almost all-JA roster (the only non-yardie on the bill so far is Montreal’s own Poirier) that also includes Jimmy Cliff, Cham, Tarrus Riley, Konshens, Khago and Assassin.

3. Respect Jamaica 50th (Indig02, London;  July 25-August 6)


After much talk earlier of this year of a “Jamaica Village” (with live performances, food vendors and other cultural happenings) near the London Olympics site in Finsbury Park, those plans have been canceled, replaced with this concert series celebrating Jamaica’s 50th anniversary of independence at the 02 Arena satellite space, indig02. We hear there’s nearly two weeks of concerts from Jimmy Cliff, Lee “Scratch” Perry, Damian Marley, Barrington Levy, Gyptian and more in store but with the festival’s site not currently accessible, and nothing on the venue’s site, we can’t seem to find much details. Hopefully, Respect Jamaica 50th goes down as planned— it would be a shame if it doesn’t. If not, there’s always the One Love Peace Festival. Happening this year on London’s Mabley Green July 15, One Love has usual summer reggae festival suspects like Bunny Wailer, Barrington Levy, Capleton, Luciano, plus I-Octane and Khago and—here’s where things get interesting—T-Pain, Rev. Runand dancehall-dabbling U.K. pop rapper Chipmunk.

2. Best of the Best (Bicentennial Park, Miami; May 27)

The main event of Miami’s famed Black College Week, Best of the Best has branched out from its reggae roots in recent years, adding more and more hip-hop. The heaviest hitters at this year’s event— Meek Mill, 2 Chainz, Fat Joe, Fabolous—definitely come from that side of things but there’s plenty of notable dancehall acts this year, too: Mavado, Shaggy, Khago, Mr. Vegas, Serani, I-Octane, Admiral Bailey, Frankie Paul—plus Iwer George and T-Vice representing for the Trinis and Haitians. In terms of spectacle, we can only imagine what they have in store to top last year’s coup, a performance from the a Visa-less but still free Vybz Kartel piped in via satellite from a house in Jamaica—Vybz live from prison?

1. Reggae Sumfest (Montego Bay, Jamaica; July 15-22)

The organizers of MoBay’s Reggae Sumfest like to wait ’til the last possible minute before announcing their lineups, so we can’t yet say who’s performing this year. We can say that Sumfest is the largest annual music festival in Jamaica, and the biggest summertime stageshow in the Caribbean, so you can expect some names as big as last year’s headliner, Nicki Minaj. While recent years’ events have drawn criticism for putting too much emphasis on international acts, with this year’s event coinciding with Jamaica’s Diamond Jubilee the result is sure to be massive, and Jamaica-centric.