Kingston Cultural Calendar: Reggae Month, Jamaica Carnival, the Caribbean Literary Heritage, and the Visual Arts Scene
The cultural calendar and creative industries of Kingston span the February Reggae Month birthday celebrations, Jamaica Carnival, the Caribbean literary tradition of the UWI, and the contemporary visual arts and fashion design scene that is expanding the creative economy of the Jamaican capital.
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Reggae Month: February in Kingston
February, the month of Bob Marley's birthday on February 6, has been designated Reggae Month in Jamaica with a calendar of concerts, museum events, and cultural programming centered on the Bob Marley Museum and the National Stadium that makes Kingston the global center of reggae culture for the entire month. The February 6 birthday concert at the Marley Museum is the most concentrated single event of the reggae cultural calendar.
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Sumfest and the Montego Bay Connection
Reggae Sumfest, the largest annual music festival in the Caribbean held in Montego Bay in July, is the premiere event of the Jamaican music industry and the convergence point for the international reggae and dancehall community; the Kingston music scene provides the artist base for the Sumfest performances but the festival's Montego Bay location means that Kingston and Montego Bay together constitute the complete Jamaican music tourism circuit.
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Jamaica Carnival: The Soca Influence
Jamaica Carnival in April, younger and smaller than the Trinidad and Tobago carnival on which it is modeled, has established itself as one of the premier Caribbean carnival events, attracting diaspora Jamaicans and regional carnival enthusiasts for the road march and the all-inclusive fete events concentrated in Kingston and Ocho Rios. The soca music influence from Trinidad combines with the dancehall culture of Kingston in a hybrid carnival tradition.
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Kingston Literary Scene: The Caribbean Literary Heritage
Kingston is the home of the Caribbean literary tradition in English, with the University of the West Indies having educated or employed the major Caribbean writers including Derek Walcott, Edward Kamau Brathwaite, and Olive Senior who created the body of work that brought Caribbean literature to international attention. The Annual Calabash International Literary Festival on the south coast near Kingston is the major Caribbean literary gathering.
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Fashion Week Kingston: The Creative Economy
Kingston Fashion Week has established the city as the center of Caribbean fashion design, showcasing the Jamaican designers who combine the Caribbean color and pattern tradition with contemporary fashion construction in a creative industry that is growing in international recognition alongside the music and cultural exports of the island.
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Yard Theatre and Visual Arts
The contemporary Kingston arts scene includes the Yard Theatre movement, which develops and presents Jamaican dramatic work in the vernacular tradition of the community yard space, and a generation of visual artists who have developed the legacy of the National Gallery intuitive art tradition into a contemporary Jamaican visual art practice exhibited in the commercial galleries of New Kingston and at the biennial.