Tim Festival will feature a night led by Jamaican sound systems. Read on Surforeggae!

On November 6, on the Motomix stage, Stone Love (Kingston) and the Brazilians Bumba Beat and Digital Dubs will represent sound system culture. Interest in Jamaican music is growing in Brazil. Besides reggae, the style best known here (though not in all its variations), ska, rock steady, dub and other branches of Jamaica's sounds — including echoes in international electronic music — are gaining more and more space. Proof of this is the lineup of two national exponents of the genre for the night of November 6 at TIM Festival, alongside a celebrated artist from the island itself. Niterói rapper De leve bridges rap and ragga.

Bumba Beat is heir and continuator of several other projects linked to Brazil-Jamaica music and culture. Its origins go back to the late 70s, when Doc Reggae (Otávio Rodrigues) began his activities as a journalist, radio host and DJ. At TIM Festival, he plays his own productions, which include versions of Jamaican music classics, plus unreleased compositions mixing reggae and derivatives with bumba-meu-boi, tambor de crioula, samba and other Brazilian and Afro-Caribbean beats. Doc Reggae (bases, voice, percussion) shares the stage with a top-notch crew including percussion, trombone and a dose of dub poetry inspired by master Linton Kwesi Johnson (rehearsals are already underway; names will be confirmed later).

Digitaldubs Sound System is a sound team specialized in dub and reggae in all its possibilities. Its style is a mix ranging from traditional Lee Perry and King Tubby to electronic acts like Zion Train and Bill Laswell. The crew, formed by selectors Nelson Meirelles (bassist, ex-O Rappa, ex-Cidade Negra), MPC, Cristiano Dubmaster and Kuke, uses a carefully curated arsenal with alternative versions of reggae classics, unknown gems of the genre, traditional grooves and electronic flavors including ragga, jungle, downtempo and more.

At the TIM performance, Digital will play only its own creations, with Nelson on bass on some of them, plus special appearances by MCs Lápide and Biguli, and percussionist Junior Ramos, who will also play escaleta on one song.

Founded in 1972, Stone Love Sound System is one of the most respected Jamaican sound systems. The idea came from Winston "WeePow" Powell. Since then, it has shaped sound and attitude that heat up the scene in Jamaica, creating and spreading trends at dances that even gained sponsorship from Irish brewery Guinness. Besides WeePow, other selectors are part of Stone Love, such as Rory, G-Fuzz, Jet Lee, Bill Cosby, Billy Slaugther and Nico. They will show TIM Festival what a Jamaican-style dance is like: reggae, dancehall, ragga and, of course, hips swaying.