Reggae Sumfest, The Largest Reggae Festival In The Caribbean, Returns This Summer In Montego Bay, Jamaica

Good news, Reggae music fans! The iconic Reggae Sumfest, the largest reggae festival in the Caribbean, returns this summer after a two-year hiatus due to the pandemic. The legendary reggae festival will be held from July 18 to July 23 at Catherine Hall in Montego Bay, Jamaica.

It’s hard to overstate the impact that the small Caribbean country of Jamaica(population: about 3 million) has had on music and pop culture worldwide. And Reggae Sumfest has been no small part of that legacy. Founded in 1993 by a production company called Summerfest Productions, Reggae Sumfest was a reaction to the fact that Reggae Sunsplash was to be no more and though that legendary festival was resurrected in 2006, Sumfest continues on.

According to the organizers, the lineup will include Beenie Man, Spragga Benz, Koffee and Beres Hammond, among other world -renowned reggae stars.

The last Reggae Sumfest edition was held in 2019 and attracted hundreds of thousands of visitors to Jamaica who could enjoy the performances of world-class reggae stars throughout the four days of the festival.  Its lineup featured Rasta roots artists Chronixx, Tarrus Riley, Jah9 and Protoje alongside marquee dancehall names Spice, Elephant Man, Dexta Daps and Spragga Benz and Buju Banton.

“Reggae Sumfest is known to be the greatest reggae show in the world. Jamaica is its birthplace, so we are excited to be partners in this to make sure that more and more people come to us,” Jamaica Tourism Minister Edmund Bartlett told local media outlets.

As the tourism sector rebounds in Jamaica, the event is expected to earn between $5 billion and $6 billion, Barlett told The Gleaner, a Jamaican media outlet.

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He said that the event will bring economic benefits to hotels,  taxi drivers,  vendors, restaurants, craft merchants and so on, employment of scores of young people in the city are among the positive impact that the festival has had.

“From the top to the bottom, everybody was benefiting. The employment was high, the hotels were sold out from Ocho Rios all the way to Negril, and we couldn’t even get Airbnb,” Bogdanovich said. “We’re very happy to be associated with it again this year; the recovery is critical and in recovering we want to do it better and bigger.”

For more information about Reggae Sumfest in Jamaica, follow the event website or its Instagram account.

What a Lineup

While its reggae lineup is extensive, Sumfest also heavily features an offshoot genre known as “dance-hall”—to the extent that an entire night of the four-night festival is devoted to it.

Two other nights are all about international acts, which may not be strictly reggae but serve as “a celebration of all the musical forms this culture has influenced.”

Over the years, the huge names who’ve played Sumfest on these nights include Beyonce, Jay-Z, Alicia Keys, Usher, Chris Brown, R. Kelly, Ne-Yo, Mary J. Blige, Kanye West, Lil Wayne, T-Pain, LL Cool J, Ludacris, Lionel Richie, Missy Elliott, 50 Cent, and Akon. Tickets for these days of the festival tend to be pricier.