Stage Shows & Events

Capleton's annual charity stage show, first staged in 2000 in his home parish of St Mary and raising funds for local schools and hospitals; it returned in 2024 at the Gray's Inn Sports Complex, Annotto Bay after a hiatus.

A one-night staging at Plantation Cove, St Ann, billed as "A Taste of Reggae Sumfest — Gaza/Gully", on 18 July 2026, with the Vybz Kartel and Mavado set running into the early hours of the 19th. It was a separate Sumfest-branded event rather than the main festival week in Montego Bay. Two years after Kartel's 2024 release and roughly twenty years after the Gully-Gaza rivalry began splitting audiences, schools and communities, the two men performed together — by contemporary accounts without hostility, trading hits across the badman, reality and lovers registers rather than reviving the exchange. It closes a loop the 2009 Jamaica House peace meeting could not: the feud ended through time, imprisonment and changed circumstances rather than agreement. Worth recording precisely: it was sold as a clash and became a combination. The Gaza/Gully billing and the "versus" framing ran through the promotion and into the footage published afterwards, but what the audience got was the two deejays sharing a stage. The distance between the billing and the night is part of what the event means — a rivalry that could still be sold long after it had stopped being fought. Contributed by the archive editor; consistent with the "versus" titling on the published footage.

Held at Accompong in St Elizabeth every 6 January, marking the 1739 treaty that ended the first Maroon war and recognised Maroon autonomy. The abeng is blown and gumbay drums played, and the festival is one of the clearest surviving lines back to African musical practice in Jamaica — a living observance rather than a heritage display.

Italian seaside reggae, dub and dancehall festival held each July in Fermo, Marche, hosting acts such as Alborosie, Black Uhuru, Julian Marley and Kabaka Pyramid.

Long-running Memorial Day weekend reggae and dancehall festival in downtown Miami (Bayfront/Museum Park), showcasing headliners such as Sizzla, Beenie Man, Capleton and Tarrus Riley.

Boasy Tuesdays is a dancehall weekly party name found in Jamaican nightlife coverage, representing the dense midweek event circuit where dancers, selectors and artists kept street culture moving outside major stage shows.

On 17-18 April 1980 Bob Marley and the Wailers performed at Rufaro Stadium, Harare, at Zimbabwe's independence ceremony, having paid their own way to attend; his song 'Zimbabwe' had become an anthem of the liberation struggle. Tear gas disrupted the first night, prompting a second free show for tens of thousands. A landmark moment of reggae's Pan-African significance (Al Jazeera; Quartz Africa; Wikipedia 'Zimbabwe (song)').

Bob Marley died on May 11, 1981, of cancer, at age 36 - a loss that turned Marley from reggae's most successful international artist into its most enduring global symbol, with his catalogue continuing to introduce new listeners to Jamaican music decades later.

Gerald "Bogle" Levy, the dancer whose invented moves defined much of 1990s-2000s Jamaican street-dance culture, died in 2005; the circumstances drew significant public attention within dancehall culture and prompted community tributes.

UK awards ceremony founded by BBC radio DJ Tony Williams to recognise homegrown reggae talent, credited by British reggae press with helping launch the international careers of a number of UK reggae artists.