The programs of the two main cultural areas in the mini Planet of the Rototom Sunsplash: the Social Forum and African Village, take off to a flying start with the first 24 confirmations, with African accents, in honour of this year’s Celebrating Africa theme.

Of the eleven names confirmed for the Social Forum, seven will travel to Benicassim from different parts of Africa to address the ‘Africas of Africa’ at the heart of the debates in the 2017 edition. The recently confirmed Nobel peace laureate Mohamed Ben Cheikh, member for the Tunisian National Quartet, will be joined by Odile Sankara, founder of the association Talents de Femmes from Burkina Faso; Firoze Manji, Kenyan journalist; the South African singer Natalia Molebatsi and the Somalian writer and actress Saba Anglana, among others.

There are also thirteen new additions to the most African space at the festival, the African Village. This emblematic space presents new proposals, such as Abha, that will present the realities of the African diaspora and the Afro-descendent collectives. That is the objective of Abha, that will bring among others the Afro-descendent project United Minds, based in Valencia and specialising in African literature, workshops, art and fashion; and Black Barcelona, an association that works to raise awareness about the African community in Barcelona.

The African Village stage has also announced its first five artists, led by the Namibian Elemotho, who will present his new album: Beautiful World, at the Rototom Sunsplash; the Ghanaian composer John Kwame Adzraku, promoter of Kwame Afrovibes; DJ Floro a benchmark for Afrobeat in Spain. The space dedicated to workshops in the African Village, renamed: Ubuntu, Ethiopian circus company Fekat Circus; Edú Gorsky, choreographer and musician from Equatorial Guinea and creator of the project Eduk’Art, and the Cameroonian storyteller Boniface Ofogo.