A two-day immersive reggae and art festival is teaming up with Palm Beach County’s leading Black museum to celebrate its musical roots and lasting influence.
The inaugural Palm Beach Reggae Music & Arts Festival is part of a unique collaboration with the Spady Cultural Heritage Museum, and the partners are kicking off the showcase with legendary reggae group Inner Circle as headliners, March 20-22. They're best known for the classics "Sweat (A La La La La Long)" and "Bad Boys".
Several elements set this festival apart from most reggae events, said Lloyd Stanbury, a Jamaican entertainment attorney and festival co-founder.
Stanbury told WLRN it includes a live concert with multiple acts, documentary film screenings, and an art exhibition featuring Jamaican photography and paintings that showcase the evolution of reggae music and culture — an influence that has touched genres such as Afrobeats from West Africa and reggaeton from Panama, which blends Jamaican dancehall with Spanish lyrics.
“Put simply, it [reggae culture] has grown beyond Jamaica. It was always the intention. That's what Bob Marley said,” Stanbury said. “Yes. It's gonna just keep going. And that is what has happened.”
Spady and the reggae festival organizers are both recipients of the Cultural Council of Palm Beach County’s new Bright Ideas Sponsorship. The program, funded by the Tourist Development Council, helps support the growth of the county’s cultural sector by supporting unique cultural offerings from both the public and private sector.
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Stanbury said the festival aims to be a long-lasting “community building” tool.
The opening night of the festival will feature filmmaker Peter Webber’s 2019 music documentary Inna de Yard: The Soul of Jamaica, which spotlights reggae musicians in Kingston, Jamaica, and “speaks to how people made original roots reggae music," Stanbury said.
“It captures the inside of Jamaica,” he said.
The festival also added Play It Loud! How Toronto Got Soul (2024), a documentary by director Graeme Mathieson, about Toronto’s overlooked Jamaican music scene of the 1960s–70s.
The films serve as a visual window into the evolution of reggae culture.
“So this festival is educational and entertaining,” Stanbury said. “That's what we're representing and that's what the patrons should expect.”
IF YOU GO
What: Palm Beach Reggae Music & Arts Festival
When: Friday, March 20 to March 22
Where: Old School Square 51 N Swinton Ave, Delray Beach, FL 33444
For more info here
