Soca+ Festival set for Kingston’s waterfront

I Love Soca Jamaica’s Soca+ Festival will be staged at Kingston’s waterfront. The soca fusion music event is set for September 23 and 24 and is touted as a revolution for the music festival industry.

“After 10 years of providing a space for fête lovers to experience soca music, we knew it was time to create a festival that encompasses an authentic Jamaican atmosphere with an international music fusion focus. That birthed the idea of an addition to the I Love Soca experience in the form of the Soca+ Festival,” said an enthusiastic Andrew Bellamy, managing director of I Love Soca.

The Soca+ Festival will feature three announced performances over the two-day period, including Trinidad and Tobago’s three-time Soca Monarch, Voice, who will perform on September 23 and five-time Vincentian Soca Monarch Skinny Fabulous, and Dancehall Legend Bounty Killer. They will take the stage on September 24.

“Soca+ Festival, like I love Soca, is about expecting the unexpected! Patrons can always anticipate that something or someone that we have not announced will be present on the Festival nights,” said Bellamy.

With more than 12 DJs and hype men billed to perform, music is at the heart of the Soca+ experience. “Music has always been our focus, whether it is the performance of the disc jockeys or the artistes, and that’s why we have a wide cross-section of the trendiest DJs across genres and genders. This is also the reason that we have sought to put so much creativity into our stage apparatus to facilitate an even more enhanced fêting experience,” commented Bellamy.

With the branding’s inclusion of other genres of music, the Soca+ Festival is also focused on the musical fusion that Jamaican events are known for but with creativity in delivery at its core. “Kingston has given the world six original genres of music with mento, ska, dub, rocksteady, reggae and dancehall. Our genres have influenced other genres, such as hip hop and reggaeton. The Caribbean has given the world a musical instrument in the form of the steel pan and genres such as calypso, soca and jab jab music. Both Kingston and Port of Spain are UNESCO-designated Cities of Music. Therefore one of the ‘pluses’ is the fusion of genres through the musical creativity of the DJs,” Bellamy said.

The creation of a ‘festival fêteland’ is another plus. “With the full reopening of the events sector, we are well aware of the importance of music in driving the cultural economy. Therefore, we have collaborated with numerous visual artistes, fashion designers, culinary experts and artisans to expand the venue to accommodate the showcase of our local and regional gastronomy through booth set-ups, cabana build-outs and intriguing eye-catching activities for a true fusion of creativity to satiate our patrons’ entertainment appetite” Bellamy said.