Summerjam Festival 2026

Line-Up

Bar­ring­ton Levy, Biga*Ranx, Bonez MC, Burn­ing Spear, Char­ly Black, Christo­pher Mar­tin, Cul­ture feat. Keny­at­ta Hill, Dex­ta Daps, DJ Puffy, Dub Inc., Fayah, Gen­tle­man, Greeen, Julian Mar­ley, Junior Kel­ly, Kyb­ba, Ky-Mani Mar­ley, Left­side, Lila Iké, Luciano, Masic­ka, Nosliw & Nat­tyflo, Orig­i­nal Kof­fee, Patorank­ing, Pro­to­je, Queen Omega, Richie Camp­bell, Samo­ra, Spice, The Con­gos, The Odd­roots, Tree­sha, Valiant a.m.o.

Vibez Village

Open­ing-Par­ty, Yoga, Bin­go, Dance Work­shops, Grüngürtel­rosen, Karaoke

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A DANCEHALL BIG BANG

Hold tight, buck­le up! Any­one read­ing these names knows exact­ly what time it is in Dance­hall. Up To Di Time – this year with­out Vybz Kar­tel. Instead, his great­est rival, the man many see as a con­tender to the throne, takes cen­tre stage. But as Paul Reitz points out in his OUTSIDE LIFE col­umn ”It’s All Kar­tel”, this is no longer about crowns and suc­ces­sion. Kartel’s posi­tion is beyond dis­pute. The same can cur­rent­ly be said for Masic­ka, who seems to be scal­ing Dancehall’s Mount Ever­est, drop­ping one bomb­shell after anoth­er while anoth­er album waits in the wings. Need proof? Just lis­ten to ”Slip & Slide”.

A loud ”Woii!” for that. Because – ta-daaa! – Mr. ”Kotch Eh Hat” him­self, aka Nar­cis­sist, aka Mr. Ver­sa­tile, aka Valiant, is also part of the line-up. At this point, you may already be feel­ing dizzy. But imag­ine the reac­tion when Dancehall’s biggest sex sym­bol glides onto the stage. Sweaty palms and scream­ing fans? Or per­haps a cho­rus of ”No Under­wear” and ”Vent”? Yep! The Dap­pa Don doesn’t just make the ”Shab­ba Mad­da Pot” boil over. Hail­ing from Seav­iew Gar­dens, Dex­ta Daps is deeply root­ed in Dance­hall cul­ture, just like for­mer neigh­bours Shab­ba, Boun­ty and Ele­phant Man, yet as a singer he has ded­i­cat­ed much of his craft to the ladies. Three of New School Dancehall’s dead­liest strik­ers on one fes­ti­val bill.

But back to the ques­tion of roy­al­ty. The reign­ing Queen of Dance­hall, Spice, may favour roy­al blue, but she takes no pris­on­ers on stage. She makes men trem­ble while wrap­ping them around her fin­ger at the same time. Ever ”Clean & Fresh” and always ready to ”Go Dung Deh”. Mean­while, Mr. Par­ty Ani­mal him­self, Char­ly Black, and Left­side keep things more ground­ed. They rep­re­sent Dance­hall with­out unnec­es­sary fuss and always deliv­er. Pro­vid­ing the sound­track and chore­og­ra­phy for the par­ty — with Spice, Char­ly, Left­side and Valiant all in the mix — are the unstop­pable Jug­glerz crew.

Dance­hall leg­end Bar­ring­ton Levy also leaves the the­atrics aside and relies on his trade­mark yodel­ing: ”Woah-oh-oh!” and ”Shid­did­ly-wad­did­ly-did­dley!” And when it comes to rep­re­sent­ing Ger­man Dance­hall, Bonez MC stands in a lane of his own.

What?! Dance­hall only at Sum­mer­jam? Nope!

Roots Reg­gae is also rep­re­sent­ed by vet­er­ans such as The Con­gos and Cul­ture fea­tur­ing Keny­at­ta Hill. Julian Mar­ley and Ky-Mani Mar­ley keep the Mar­ley lega­cy alive. Yet the Reg­gae spec­trum stretch­es much fur­ther, from Sat­ur­day head­lin­er Gen­tle­man and the ever-acro­bat­ic Luciano to Mod­ern Roots ambas­sador Junior Kel­ly, lover’s rock trou­ba­dour Christo­pher Mar­tin, pow­er­house vocal­ist Queen Omega, and the Now Gen­er­a­tion rep­re­sent­ed by Orig­i­nal Kof­fee, Lila Iké and Pro­to­je. Yep, King Digg still sounds as fresh as ever. And with per­for­mances by Nat­tyflo and Nosliw, there’s even a touch of Ger­man Reg­gae revival in the air.

In 2025, the Feel Good Stage proved one of the festival’s stand­out attrac­tions, and this year Sum­mer­jam once again pro­vides a plat­form for an impres­sive array of sounds and selec­tors. Among them are Left­side, DJ Puffy, Kyb­ba, War­rior Sound, Jug­glerz, home­town heroes DJ Densen, Junior Lion, DJ Adirock and Bun Baby­lon, as well as the ever-busy Nay Hon­ey. The list goes on and on. Par­ty vibes from mid­day until mid­night.

And when the main stages close, the heavy­weights take over. Pow Pow Move­ment and Italy’s Heavy Ham­mer, along­side War­rior Sound and Belgium’s Team Damp, will keep the Dance­hall Area sweat­ing deep into the night.

At that point, there’s hard­ly any­thing left to wish for.

Except maybe a nice, chilled Reg­gae spot to catch your breath.

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Text: Ellen Köh­lings

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