REGGAE JAM 2026: Vibes, Treats, a Musical Utopia, and a Veritable Storm of Criticism

Text: Ellen Köh­lings /// Pho­tos: Stephan Haas

---

I’ve lost count of how many times Reg­gae Jam has tak­en first place in the RIDDIM read­er poll. Quite a few times. Many attribute the festival’s pop­u­lar­i­ty first and fore­most to its very spe­cial vibe – a gath­er­ing of a com­mu­ni­ty that not only lis­tens to the same music but also shares the same val­ues and feels con­nect­ed as a result.

Reg­gae Jam is also Bernd “Sher­iff” Lage­mann – the festival’s mas­ter­mind. With a great deal of love and pas­sion, he’s turned a small event into some­thing big. That doesn’t always trans­late direct­ly into num­bers. But this year, far more peo­ple found their way to Bersen­brück than in recent years.

Ah yes, the tran­quil munic­i­pal­i­ty on the Hase Riv­er. Many of its res­i­dents min­gle with the reg­gae crowd and get lost in the vibe. Peo­ple of all back­grounds come togeth­er at RJ – many with African roots. Their stalls line part of the path from the Hei­dekrug, our lodg­ing, to the fes­ti­val grounds – along the Hase Riv­er.

These ele­ments – the vibes, Sher­iff, Bersen­brück – take cen­ter stage at the Reg­gae Jam. But of course, the line­up always offers plen­ty of spe­cial treats as well. This year, Singy Singy aka Tar­rus Riley takes the spot­light along­side mas­ter sax­o­phon­ist Dean Fras­er and the Blak Soil Band. And right before that: Alborosie with his Shen­gen Clan. Both acts once again high­light the impor­tance of the play­ers of instru­ments. Before that, King Kong brings the ’80s dance­hall era back to life. Those are my Fri­day high­lights.

On Sat­ur­day, it’s above all the expres­sive Italee who, with her pres­ence alone, can eas­i­ly com­mand the biggest stages. See­ing the Jamaican boy group T.O.K. back togeth­er on stage is pure nos­tal­gia. With this, Sher­iff pulls off a coup that many had been eager­ly antic­i­pat­ing. Per­son­al­ly, I was look­ing for­ward to see­ing the pro­duc­er and ‘T.O.K.’s long­time man­ag­er, Richard “Shams” Browne, a mem­ber of the famous Browne clan. Thanks to his broth­er-in-law, our Kingston taxi dri­ver Pablo (R.I.P.), we once end­ed up at their din­ner table by chance.

On Sun­day, amid a light rain, I groove to the loud and impres­sive play­ers of instru­ments from Dubarise, soak up the roots reg­gae from the Mys­tic Reveal­ers, and, above all, cel­e­brate the Female Show­case orga­nized by the ener­getic Samo­ra, fea­tur­ing Ammoye, Yeza, and Zoe Mazah. Lat­er on, no one can escape the dom­i­nance of Queen Omega. There’s still room for growth when it comes to women behind the decks.

I heard a lot more acts, but most­ly from a dis­tance and with only half an ear—after all, oth­er tasks await me at the RIDDIM Cor­ner: explain­ing why the print edi­tion no longer exists, intro­duc­ing peo­ple to riddim.world, and, in between, orga­niz­ing and host­ing meet-and-greets with artists from the line­up. There’s also a notice­ably nice vibe at the booth.

This vibe is espe­cial­ly strong at the Roots Camp, which is no longer orga­nized sole­ly by the Roots Plague Soundsys­tem from Mün­ster, but by five oth­er soundsys­tems from the region: Kun­ter­bunt, Rise Up Hi-Fi, Zion Gar­den, Sim­ple Skank, Teu­topi­an, plus about 150 vol­un­teers. Togeth­er, they cre­ate a mag­i­cal refuge – a sound utopia – using nat­ur­al mate­ri­als. Black Omo­lo and Dubarise are back as guests. In addi­tion to strict­ly veg­an food and the leg­endary choco­late chai, there’s a col­or­ful work­shop pro­gram and a minia­ture sound sys­tem where the kids – the next gen­er­a­tion – can try their hand at it.

While every­thing at the fes­ti­val seems to be sun­shine and ros­es, a shit­storm has long been rag­ing online. That’s because on Thurs­day evening, the open­ing par­ty in the dance­hall sparked a mas­sive out­cry, espe­cial­ly with­in the Black com­mu­ni­ty.

Serv­ing as the back­drop behind the selec­tors is a four-meter-tall papi­er-mâché instal­la­tion of a face­less Black dancer in a head­stand, sport­ing a volu­mi­nous butt in skimpy den­im shorts. With her spindly, dis­pro­por­tion­ate­ly short legs, she looks more like a fried chick­en. Attached to her legs are two strings that allow her but­tocks to move. In front of the stage is a sign read­ing “Women At Twerk,” which is meant to give the whole thing the air of some light­heart­ed dance­hall fun.

But the dance­hall decor goes viral in an Insta­gram video in which two white selec­tors play – of all songs – Kon­shens’ and Char­ly Black’s “Gyal Time Again,” fea­tur­ing the line “Mi fuck yuh inna dance­hall, fuck yuh inna reg­gae,” for a pre­dom­i­nant­ly white audi­ence. Women around the world were quick to speak out. They took issue with the sex­u­al­ized por­tray­al of a Black female dancer – reduced to stereo­types from the colo­nial era – by and for pre­dom­i­nant­ly white men. The video, which has since been delet­ed, received numer­ous com­ments by the next morn­ing. The fes­ti­val respond­ed with an apol­o­gy and had the ques­tion­able stage dec­o­ra­tion tak­en down.

The next morn­ing, RIDDIM staff mem­ber Nao­mi Marie-Rose sug­gests pub­lish­ing our spe­cial fea­ture on racism on riddim.world – a fea­ture that orig­i­nal­ly appeared in the print edi­tion of RIDDIM in 2020 in the wake of the Black Lives Mat­ter move­ment. Since we don’t want to leave the cur­rent debate to the com­ment sec­tions on so-called social media, we’re post­ing three arti­cles online that shed light on the ten­sion between white lis­ten­ers and Black music. Racism has many faces, which we can only con­front through open com­mu­ni­ca­tion.

The dis­cus­sion does noth­ing to detract from the fes­ti­val vibe I described at the begin­ning. After all, it has sparked a con­ver­sa­tion that will hope­ful­ly con­tin­ue. In any case, demand for tick­ets for next year is as high as ever. And who knows what else this debate will set in motion – per­haps more women behind the decks and hope­ful­ly many Black women.

---

Impressions Of Our Photographer Stephan Haas:

---