Reggae Sumfest to honour Fantan Mojah with tribute performance
Reggae Sumfest paid tribute to Fantan Mojah at Plantation Cove, St Ann, days after his death at 49. The salute also re-centred the roots-heavy catalogue that made him matter.
Reggae Sumfest marked Fantan Mojah with a tribute performance during A Taste of Reggae Sumfest at Plantation Cove, St Ann, on Saturday, July 18, 2026, turning the festival’s latest stage into a memorial for one of conscious reggae’s clearest voices. The salute landed because Fantan Mojah’s work was never just about hits, it was about carrying a Rastafarian message, spiritual uplift and social commentary into a modern reggae era that often leans hard on immediacy.
Organisers described him as “a true soldier,” a phrase that fit the way he held the lane for roots music even as the scene kept shifting around him. He had most recently performed on the Reggae Sumfest stage in 2025, so the tribute felt tied to an artist who was still part of the festival’s living memory, not a name being dusted off for ceremony.
Fantan Mojah, born Owen Moncrieffe, died on July 14 at the University Hospital of the West Indies after a period of illness. He was 49. Jamaica Observer and other reports linked his death to heart complications, and the outpouring across the Jamaican music community showed how widely his music had been heard as more than entertainment. His songs spoke to struggle, faith and resilience, the kind of lyrical seriousness that has always separated conscious reggae from disposable radio chatter.
That is why his catalogue still matters to reggae readers and to anyone who watches the live scene closely. Fantan Mojah’s records worked because they came from a place of conviction, with messages that connected to the roots tradition while still sounding current on a festival sound system. The tribute at Sumfest made that point without needing a lecture: his songs were built to travel from the studio to the stage and stay with a crowd long after the night ended.
His wider profile also reached beyond Jamaica. Complex reported that he had been preparing to return to Germany’s Reggae Jam Festival after overcoming a major health crisis in 2024, which underlined both his international pull and the unfinished business around his career. At a moment when reggae’s live business is balancing new dancehall energy with the need to preserve legacy, Sumfest used Fantan Mojah’s name to keep conscience music in the frame.
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