RudeBwoy 3ntertainment presents:
7th Annual Island Reggae Festival
July 14, 2018
Santa Clara County Fairgrounds
344 Tully Road, San Jose, CA 95111
Festival hours: 11am-11pm
General Admission day of show: $65
Early bird advance ticket price (until June 2nd): $45
Early bird advance VIP ticket price (until June 2nd): $150
Day of show VIP ticket price: $175
Kids 5 and under free
Parking not included in admission
Tickets available now through Eventbrite
Facebook: @IslandReggaeFest
Instagram: @island_reggae_festival
Artist Lineup: Fiji, Aaradhna, Katchafire, Chaka Demus & Pliers, Sons of Zion, Aziel, Jordan T, Samiielz, Lomez Brown and more to be announced
7th Annual Island Reggae Festival Celebrates Polynesian Culture
Festival highlights, dance, crafts, tattoo cultural themes
RudeBwoy 3ntertainment presents the 7th annual Island Reggae Festival held at the Santa Clara County Fairgrounds, 344 Tully Road in San Jose, California. The event offerings in 2018 include activities on two stages with live reggae, pop and R& B, music from around the Pacific Rim & Jamaica. The event also features an Island Dance Showcase with troupes from varied Polynesian cultures represented. There are unlimited carnival rides for children an Island Tattoo expo inside the exhibit halls of the fairgrounds, as well as a free Diabetes Awareness clinic. Held offsite at a local athletic field is the annual Youth Rugby 7’s tournament. The gates open at 11am and the event concludes at 11pm. Discounted tickets are on sale now through islandreggaefest.com and the Eventbrite ticketing platform.
Returning to the Island Reggae Fest 2018 stage is the legendary Fiji whose stage name reflects his cultural background and whose golden voice has made him a pioneer of the Island Reggae sound as its most well-known artist paving the way for the careers of many others in the genre, whom he has personally mentored, recorded, and co-wrote with throughout the years. Island Reggae Festival fans welcome the artist by singing along word for word with his set of well-loved songs.
Island Reggae Fest welcomes Aaradhna, a female R&B influenced singer who hails from New Zealand and is of Samoan and Indian descent. She’s built a steady fanbase by writing and releasing soulful, personal songs since 2004. All of four of her albums have gone on to become top 20 hits. Her 2016 album Brown Girl debuted at number one in New Zealand and addressed issues of racism as a mixed-race New Zealander.
New Zealand’s Katchafire was formed by lead guitarist Grenville Bell, father of lead singer Logan Bell and drummer, vocalist & songwriter Jordan Bell. This 8-piece band has toured extensively performing on many of the world’s biggest festivals including Glastonbury in the UK. The Katchafire band’s recorded music including four highly successful studio albums and numerous singles with platinum sales certification remain a mainstay on Island Reggae playlists. An all-Maori reggae band, their sound is built on the foundation of classic roots reggae, with additional R&B, dancehall and funk influences that combine to present one of the greatest reggae shows on the scene today.
Artists on the lineup for Island Reggae Festival consistently feature some of the Pacific Islands’ greatest talents living throughout the world and those that have been embraced by Island
Reggae music culture. Chaka Demus & Pliers the Jamaican duo best known for the 1993 mega hit reggae dancehall song “Murder She Wrote” appear on the Island Reggae Fest stage for the first time in 2018. The first Jamaican act to have three consecutive top five hits on the UK charts, Chaka Demus & Pliers present catchy collaborations in a playful vocal style like “Tease Me” onstage. The duo have toured the world since the early nineties appearing on the American Music Awards with Alicia Keys and the BET Awards as representatives of dancehall reggae Jamaican style to the world with their signature hits.
Sons of Zion are a band from New Zealand who fuse Rock, Dub, R&B with Reggae. They first came on the scene in 2009 and since that time have released a string of hits including “Be My Lady”, “Good Love”, “That Enough” and more. Touring New Zealand numerous times, they have performed numerous sold out shows both in the Pacific Rim and in the U.S.
Legendary San Francisco Bay native of Samoan descent, Aziel will bring his R&B influenced sound with songs like “Fall In Love Again” from his 2005 album Take You Away to the IRF 2018 audience. He won the Hawaii Music Award for Best R&B artist in 2006.
With a growing audience of over 2.5 million streams on Spotify alone, Jordan T has toured the world performing on many of the world’s most prestigious festival stages including California Roots in the U.S., Summerjam in Germany and Rototom in Spain. His high energy performance style, soaring vocals over roots reggae songwriting influenced by vintage soul melodies combined with world class production values on hits like “Sunset Tonight” and “Close To You” make him a part of the next generation of Island Reggae.
Sammielz returns to IRF 2018 coming from Sydney, Australia he was born and raised in New Zealand. Performing as a solo artist since 2001, he’s got a stack of hits to perform including “Let Us Be” and “Good Vibes”.
With his cultural heritage centered in the Maori of New Zealand and the Cook Islands
Lomez Brown mixes Reggae with HipHop and R&B to create feel good music with an island flavor. Based in Auckland, New Zealand his songwriting is inspired by his present day role as a youth worker in the school system. Singing hit songs like “All My Life” & “Luvin Comes Down”, Lomez Brown will make his first ever appearance at Island Reggae Festival 2018.
Pacific Island reggae music receives a great deal of attention both at traditional broadcast radio and online as those that have moved from their birthplace or those that represent the next generation maintain a strong cultural connection through music. The term “island reggae” refers to artists from the Pacific Islands region and whose music has made it to the airwaves of the community worldwide. Some of the most well-loved artists in the genre today will be at Island Reggae Festival in 2018 with more artists to be announced in the weeks to come.
A family-friendly event, each year unlimited, free carnival rides and games are available for ages 12 and under. The event will feature over thirty merchandise and food vendors with
Pacific Islands menu offerings as well as some of the best in festival food favorites.
Returning in 2018 is the Youth Rugby 7’s Tournament. Rugby is a popular sport in the South Pacific Islands. This year the tournament will invite youths from the ages 8 to 14 known to participate as well as high school aged rugby players. The winners of each age group will be announced on the main stage and receive a hand-crafted Island Reggae Festival plaque inscribed with their team name.
The Island Dance Showcase will present dance groups and styles from various islands in the South Pacific including Samoa, Tonga, Hawaii, Tahiti, Fiji and New Zealand. The Tattoo Showcase will be featuring some of the most popular Pacific Islander Tattoo artists who will be tattooing live at the festival and giving tutorials on traditional tattoo patterns and what their symbols and origins derive from.
The 7th Annual Island Reggae Festival will also include a Diabetes Awareness initiative in
partnership with Foothill Community Health Clinic. Onsite at IRF 2018, the clinic will be conducting free glucose screenings and giving away glucose readers, glucose strips and various toys. As to how these community-health oriented aspects of the festival come into play Danny Perez explains, “This festival is a platform we created to celebrate our Pacific Islander culture through music and dance. We are also bringing awareness as to the diabetes epidemic our people face.”
After presenting the festival for the first 3 years at Great America, in 2015 the organizers began hosting the event at the Santa Clara County Fairgrounds, a venue that allows for expanded space for an all-ages event that the entire family can enjoy and one that provides an appropriate concert setting to attract music lovers from varied backgrounds. As event organizer Danny Perez notes, “In past years what stood out were the various ethnicities that were in attendance. We are predominantly a Polynesian crowd and to see to our demographic expand to include many different groups is great. I’ve envisioned the Island Reggae Festival as an event that we as Polynesians can call our own but also as an avenue to expose our island culture and music to others.”
Tickets are available on line through the Island Reggae Festival website islandreggaefest.com through Eventbrite or at regional ticket outlets in the weeks to come in the Peninsula Area, San Francisco, North, East and South Bay, Sacramento, Stockton and Monterrey areas.
Contact: Justine Ketola (323)251-0542 amadoriartists@gmail.com
