Rise & Vibes 2026 at Tico Time: A Box of Chocolates by the River

Rise & Vibes 2026 Was a Box of Chocolates by the River

Rise & Vibes is - and we are laughing as we say it - a box of chocolates.

You honestly never know what you are going to get.

You might find Thievery Corporation performing on a stage far more intimate than the rooms and festival fields where many people are used to seeing them. You might walk across the grounds and discover a DJ set turning into its own late-night universe. You might encounter fire spinners, fire-breathers, clowns on stilts, or even a mime before stumbling into a sound-system clash that carries the night toward 4 a.m.

At most festivals, that kind of unpredictability could feel disorganized. At Rise & Vibes, it feels like the point.

Held May 29-31, 2026 at Tico Time River Resort in Aztec, New Mexico, near the Colorado border and just south of Durango, Rise & Vibes once again turned the banks of the Animas River into a temporary community built around reggae, roots, electronic music, sound-system culture, camping, movement, and the freedom to wander toward whatever catches your attention next.

The 2026 lineup brought together Thievery Corporation, Collie Buddz, The Hip Abduction, Ott., KBong & Johnny Cosmic, Marlon Asher, SensaMotion, Rik Jam, E.N Young, selectors, DJs, electronic artists, and a wide range of independent performers. But the festival could never be explained by its lineup poster alone.

It has to be experienced as a place.

Thievery Corporation on a stage that felt almost impossibly intimate

Seeing Thievery Corporation on Tico Time's main stage immediately demonstrated what makes this festival so unusual.

It had been a long time since we had personally watched them perform in a setting that felt this close and intimate. The surrounding trees, open air, riverfront atmosphere, and size of the stage made the performance feel less like a distant headline production and more like being invited into the music.

The set was nearly everything we could have wanted. Thievery Corporation moved through their genre-defying world of dub, electronic music, reggae, global rhythms, and lounge textures without making the scale of their catalog feel too large for the space.

We kept hoping Raquel Jones might walk out for an appearance, but she was not part of the performance we saw on this tour. That was the only impossible wish left unanswered. The set itself still delivered exactly the kind of transportive experience people came to Tico Time hoping to find.

Then we walked across the grounds and found something completely different happening.

Across the way, the festival became a circus

While one part of Rise & Vibes was settling into the sophisticated pulse of Thievery Corporation, another part of the grounds was getting increasingly wild.

DJ sets were escalating. Fire performers moved through the darkness. Clowns appeared on stilts. A mime entered the picture for reasons that probably made perfect sense at the time.

That is the box-of-chocolates effect: every turn delivers something different, and no two people are guaranteed to experience the same festival.

The music continued deep into the night, eventually giving way to a sound-system clash that stretched toward approximately 4 a.m. Reactions the next morning were mixed. Some people loved that the music refused to stop. Others were clearly wishing the bass had shown slightly more mercy to the camping areas.

Either way, the late night changed the pace of the following morning. People rose later than usual, moved a little more slowly, and took extra time before returning to the stages.

Rik Jam brought the morning back to life

For us, the next day truly began when Rik Jam took the stage.

There was visible care in the performance. It did not feel like an artist simply checking another festival appearance off a calendar. You could see the attention, effort, and love being placed into the set.

That performance also landed during a busy period for the Jamaican artist, whose 2026 schedule has included appearances at Reggae Rise Up Florida, Austin Reggae Festival, Rise & Vibes, and an extensive summer run of club dates and festivals across the United States.

After a long night and a slower morning, Rik Jam gave the crowd the lift it needed. The festival felt fully awake again.

Selekta Razja changed the plan when the time slot changed

One of the most revealing conversations of the weekend came during our follow-up interview with Denver-based Selekta Razja.

He usually arrives at a festival with an idea of how he wants to shape the energy before ever reaching the stage. But his Friday slot presented a different challenge. Instead of the earlier foundation-roots placement he often receives, Rise & Vibes gave him a 12:30 a.m. set.

Rather than resist the timing, he changed the plan.

Selekta Razja: "I played a dance hall set that was pretty wild on them."

The result matched the hour. It was late, physical, and built to keep people moving rather than gently wind the night down.

Razja's explanation of the difference between a selector and someone simply playing songs also captured why the DJ and sound-system side of Rise & Vibes is so essential to the festival.

Selekta Razja: "A good selector can read a crowd and know where to take them next."

That is a skill a playlist cannot reproduce. A selector has to watch bodies, notice when attention shifts, understand when to let a rhythm breathe, and recognize when the next tune needs to increase the pressure.

For Razja, the Tico Time setting adds another layer to that relationship.

Selekta Razja: "There's a big ancestor vibe here that I can feel."

He traced that feeling back to an earlier Rise & Vibes performance when he played live dub with Judah White, Jubba White, and Mandep Bre. After 17 years of selecting, he still places that set among the five best he has ever played.

That memory is part of what gives Rise & Vibes continuity. The festival is not only producing new moments. It is building a shared history between artists, selectors, and returning attendees.

A selector's real job is to keep the music alive

Razja also spoke about the wider evolution of reggae and sound-system culture. While juggling riddims remain part of the tradition, the release landscape has shifted toward a constant flow of individual songs. For a working selector, that means staying current without abandoning the roots.

His foundation remains reggae and dub, but his sets can move through dancehall, Afrobeat, instrumental music, and a broader world-music spectrum. He is also continuing to develop his turntablism and looking toward more experimental work, including ideas that could fit into yoga and movement spaces.

Still, the central goal remains unchanged: strong music, a conscious message, and a bass line capable of moving the room.

That balance between foundation and curiosity is exactly what Rise & Vibes gives selectors room to explore.

DJ JahMek and the bridge between analog history and digital culture

Our conversation with DJ JahMek was long overdue.

Music Coast's Shay Crawford has known him since the days of hosting Afterdark on Arizona's Channel 44, making this interview feel less like a first introduction and more like returning to a conversation that began years ago.

JahMek has more than three decades of hands-on experience and has played thousands of events, with a musical foundation that moves through roots reggae, dancehall, jungle, and dub. Before a set, however, the excitement still begins with something physical.

DJ JahMek: "It's all about the energy. It's all about the adrenaline."

For JahMek, the bass is not background sound. It is the force that gets the heart pumping, moves the blood, and reconnects the body to the music.

He also rejects the idea that honoring old-school sound-system culture requires refusing modern tools. His perspective is rooted in vinyl and analog history, but he recognizes that the digital bridge is already being crossed. The responsibility is to embrace that movement without losing the knowledge, sound quality, and culture that came before it.

A sound system is more than speakers playing loudly

JahMek's explanation of a true sound-system session helped clarify why those late-night Rise & Vibes spaces feel so different from hearing the same songs through ordinary venue speakers.

A real system is constructed around the relationship between highs, mids, and lows. The bass is designed to be felt physically. The entire rig becomes an instrument, built to move a crowd in ways that stock sound or a car stereo cannot reproduce.

That same philosophy informs JahMek's commitment to vinyl. Buying a record is not only about collecting an object or preferring an older format. It directly supports the artist and preserves the production as something tangible.

His approach to sound-clash culture carries a similar balance. Yes, the clash is competitive, and he understands it as a sport. But the larger mission is not about ego or defeating somebody else.

DJ JahMek: "You're trying to leave a positive message, you know, for the youth."

That mission extends beyond any single style, background, or nationality.

DJ JahMek: "Reggae is for everybody."

At a festival built around community, riverfront connection, and sound systems running deep into the night, that statement felt less like a slogan and more like a description of what was happening around us.

SensaMotion found grounding in the Tico Time setting

We also caught up with Art of SensaMotion, whose band arrived at Rise & Vibes shortly after performing at California Roots.

The two festivals offered very different environments. Cali Roots carries the scale and history of a major Monterey gathering, while Tico Time creates something closer, earthier, and more physically connected to nature.

Art: "There's always a different energy at these kind of festivals."

At Rise & Vibes, he felt a grounding quality in the setting - people being present beside the river, surrounded by nature, and connecting without the rush of a larger commercial festival environment.

That atmosphere also complemented SensaMotion's current creative chapter. Their 2025 album Feel It All Around is a reflective 10-track project featuring collaborations with Stick Figure, The Hip Abduction, Jacob Hemphill of SOJA, Layton Meacham, and E.N Young. Songs including "Shine Upon Us All," "Changes," "The Ways," and the title track explore self-reflection, improvement, relationships, and what Art described as the growing pains of being human.

Art: "The feeling that I was chasing with this record was sort of like an introspective one."

When we asked which part of SensaMotion's sonic mixture matters most in a live setting, he did not hesitate.

Art: "Drum and bass. Drum and bass. Drum and bass."

That foundation supports the band's ambient vocals and spacious textures. The goal is to make the kick and bass hit physically while the rest of the sound opens something larger around the listener.

Art: "It's like a cosmic adventure."

That description could just as easily apply to Rise & Vibes itself.

Walking the grounds became part of the reporting

After finishing the scheduled interviews, we packed away the interview gear and spent more time moving through the grounds with cameras.

That shift changed how we experienced the rest of the festival. Instead of moving from appointment to appointment, we could document the pieces that do not always appear on a lineup poster: vendors talking with returning attendees, people resting near the river, spontaneous dancing, artwork, campsites, costumes, and small conversations happening between performances.

We handed out Music Coast stickers, caught up with vendors, and kept running into people we had met at other reggae events. Those interactions reinforced the feeling that Rise & Vibes is not merely a place where an audience watches artists. It is a place where scenes overlap and relationships continue from year to year.

Marlon Asher brought love, history, and a new chapter to the stage

Marlon Asher delivered exactly the kind of performance people have come to expect from him: confident, warm, and deeply connected to the crowd.

Jamaican flags flew high throughout the set, held by familiar faces near the front who seemed unable to stop smiling. The affection moved both ways. Asher consistently gave love back to the audience, allowing the performance to feel communal rather than distant.

The appearance also came during an active period in his career. Shortly before Rise & Vibes, he released the seven-track Ganjafarmer EP, revisiting the legacy of his signature anthem while connecting it to newer collaborations and the changing cultural landscape around cannabis.

At Tico Time, however, the history never overwhelmed the immediate moment. Asher performed like an artist who understands what the songs have meant to people, but still wants every appearance to feel alive in the present.

Amazing sets, late-night clashes, and a circus in between

Across the weekend, Rise & Vibes delivered strong performances from the opening artists, headliners, DJs, selectors, and sound systems.

There were polished main-stage sets and loose late-night sessions. There were deep bass lines and introspective songwriting. There were dancers, campers, vendors, fire performers, stilt walkers, and at least one mime.

Most festivals would struggle to hold all of those identities together. Rise & Vibes succeeds because it does not try to smooth them into one predictable experience.

It lets the box stay mixed.

The Music Coast takeaway

Rise & Vibes 2026 was intimate without feeling small, unpredictable without losing its center, and deeply rooted without closing itself off from new sounds.

Thievery Corporation made the main stage feel almost private. Rik Jam brought a tired morning back to life. Selekta Razja turned a late slot into a dancehall opportunity. DJ JahMek connected decades of vinyl and sound-system history to the digital future. SensaMotion gave the riverside atmosphere a language of its own. Marlon Asher closed his chapter of the weekend with warmth, flags, and a crowd smiling from cheek to cheek.

Top all of that off with an all-night sound-system clash and a traveling circus, and you have Rise & Vibes.

Amazing weekend. Great people. Always a vibe.

See you next year.