Benicasim I Wednesday, August 19, 2026.- Rototom crosses the midpoint of its 31st edition this Thursday, August 20. After three festival days, the international festival in Benicasim enters its fourth day. Ahead lie 24 hours to keep gathering experiences, fun, learning and uninterrupted leisure. The proposal is simple: design your own agenda, let yourself go and combine stages, beach, workshops, reflection and dancing until your body asks for a rest.
At Rototom the day begins long before the sunset that gives way to the concerts. And this Thursday there are reasons to get up early, to head to the sea, sit around a cup of tea, discover new ways of looking at your surroundings and, later, when night falls, to dance to the rhythms of Jamaica, Africa and the new urban scenes, with Shenseea, one of the most influential voices in contemporary dancehall and a headliner of this edition, as the evening’s main draw.
A day to sit around the same table, share ideas and experiences
The non-musical programme will begin, as every morning, at SunBeach. The yoga session at 10:00 AM invites you to recharge by the Mediterranean. Without leaving this satellite stage of Rototom right on Gurugú beach, the DJ sessions will take over. At 5:00 PM, a dancehall class will prepare the body to return to the venue and dive into more offerings.
Gastronomy occupies a prominent place at the festival, with a global food offering comprising 25 stalls this year, and Thursday’s programme demonstrates this again but from different perspectives. In Jamkunda, this commitment to gastronomy will be the starting point for talking about much more. With the Abarka collective as host, Ataya Social Café transforms Jamkunda plaza into a circle of conversation and coexistence around the tea ritual. In this session, shared reflection will be activated through seeds with the workshop ‘Ingredients: What stories are told around the same pot?’, an invitation to dialogue about cooking as living memory, cultural identity, migration and the community bonds woven around the table and food. Also following the gastronomic view, Pachamama will host another workshop at 8:00 PM, this time led by Gastrobotánicas, dedicated to edible wild plants. A workshop to discover that nature can also hide ingredients in unexpected places and that values knowledge about the environment and conscious eating.
Reflection, but from another thematic axis, will have another meeting point in the Teen Yard, with the AfroDiccionario’s anti-racist language workshop (6:00 PM). The Madrid-based organization proposes reviewing the words and expressions we use automatically to identify micro-racisms, stereotypes and forms of discrimination that slip into everyday language. It will be followed, in this same space for younger audiences, by another rap creation workshop with Black Uhuru Educación.
And when reflection gives way to spectacle, it will be time for circus. Rototom Circus celebrates ‘La Nit del Foc’ (11:00 PM) with Circo Diverso, from Madrid, and Espai de Circ, from Valencia. In Magicomundo, the journey will be geographical and cultural: artist Dodou Nganga will invite you to discover Africa through singing, dancing and family activities (7:15 PM).
Thought will also have one last appointment before the night definitively takes over the stages. At 6:00 PM, the Social Forum closes its programme with ‘The Law of the strongest: Empires, wars and resistances’, a debate focusing on international geopolitics and a context marked by the escalation of conflicts, the erosion of international law and the rise of authoritarianism. French journalist Rokhaya Diallo, regular contributor to The Guardian, writer, film director and human rights defender, will share conversation with Juan Bordera, journalist, screenwriter, member of parliament in Les Corts Valencianes and representative of the Global Sumud Flotilla. From the Exodus Foundation, organizer of the Social Forum, they note that with this edition the festival has once again reaffirmed its commitment to human rights, peace and sustainability.
And when the sun goes down… music takes over
Thursday’s musical afternoon will open the path toward a night of enriching sound contrasts. The first set will be Ilan Amores (Lion Stage, 8:00 PM), an Argentinian artist who has christened his universe as ‘Chico de la Pampa’. Cumbia, folklore, punk and trap blend in a proposal born from the Latin American experience and raw, everyday lyrics. The journey will continue on this same stage through the dub of British duo Omega Nebula (12:10 AM), combining the power of the traditional sound system with the energy of contemporary electronics; and with Andrés Cotter, bassist, producer and undisputed reference point of ska and reggae in Argentina.
But if there’s one name that concentrates much of the international attention of this fourth festival day, it’s Shenseea (Sun Stage, 1:15 AM). The Jamaican has become one of the great figures of contemporary dancehall and one of Kingston’s artists with the greatest international reach of the last decade. Since ‘Loodi’, her explosive debut, she has shown that the boundaries between dancehall, pop, R&B and hip hop can disappear when there’s personality, talent and an overwhelming stage presence. She arrives at Rototom as a representative of a new Jamaican generation capable of connecting directly with young international audiences without renouncing her roots.
Sun Stage will also receive one of the most special proposals of this edition: that of Barcelona’s Pure Negga, who will lead with his ‘Rototom Cypher Experience’ (10:35 PM) this exclusive gathering alongside fifteen invited artists and musicians, showcasing the vitality of a new generation that makes reggae a space for exploration.
And to complete the evening on Sun Stage, one of the great chapters in the history of roots reggae: Israel Vibration and The Roots Radics (9:05 PM), backed by The Roots Radics, one of Jamaica’s most legendary backing bands and an essential piece in building the heavy, precise sound that defined reggae in the 1980s.
The night will keep growing across the festival’s different spaces. In Jamkunda, the party will have an African and electronic accent with Afrocall, a Castellón-based collective of afrobeats, amapiano, dancehall and urban sounds; Dre Tala, a Cameroonian DJ and selector with an international career; and Senegalese DJ Douds and his mix of afrobeat, reggae, dancehall, trap, house, electronics and different expressions of black music.
And for those in no hurry to go to sleep, two natural refuges remain: the Dancehall, to dance until dawn, and the Dub, to let yourself be carried away by the bass.
Beyond being that festival day when Rototom crosses the midpoint of its 31st edition, this Thursday, August 20 is a new invitation to explore the entire festival: from yoga to dancehall, from a conversation about Senegalese cooking to geopolitics, from the gastronomic versatility of wild plants to roots reggae, from circus to the dance floor. And back to the beginning.
