We are committed to helping reggae and Jamaican music to go international. And for the 2017 Celebrating Africa edition, to be held in Benicassim 12 to 19 August, we announce the first ever appearance of The Specials – a group who brought Ska to a new audience in the 1980s.

The Specials were formed in Coventry, England, in the late 1970s. They combined the raw energy of punk with the driving syncopation of Ska and a message of musical and cultural unity that lives on today. Songs like “Too Much Too Young”, their cover of Dandy Livingstone’s “A Message To You”, and the dub-influenced “Ghost Town” defined an era for youth in Margaret Thatcher’s Britain and won an army of devoted fans worldwide.

Reforming after 30 years in 2009, The Specials are an unmissable live experience. Appearing at Rototom for the first time in the festival’s 24 year history – The Specials will bring their up-tempo infectious excitement and love for Jamaican culture to the Main Stage.

The Specials join one of their biggest influences in this year’s line-up, Toots & The Maytals – whose 1969 classic “Monkey Man” the English group covered in 1979.