Respect Festival 2026 – Sustaining a Community for World Music

The Respect Festival returns to Prague for its 29th edition mid June, bringing a diverse line-up of artists from Europe, Africa, the Middle East and South Asia to Štvanice Island.

The Respect Festival is in its 29th year, and this edition brings legendary and younger musicians from neighboring European countries, throughout Africa, the Middle East, and South Asia. The festival nourishes community with ethnic foods and goods in a family atmosphere, as a two-day open-air annual event on Stvanice Island, more accessible than ever by the bridge from Holesovice.

The headliner is Cheikh Lo, a Senegalese legend, who debuted in 1996 with “Ne La Thiass” considered a classic and a breakthrough for World Music. While it is normal for rock bands to tour, playing in entirety 20 or 30 years-old albums, Cheikh Lo should do this for his debut, at 30-years old, and titled with a warning, “Gone in a Flash,” i.e., be prepared for the unexpected and have faith in God’s will.

Guitarist and percussionist Cheikh Lo sings in a sensual, breezy delivery, with lyrics both spiritual and earthly. Born 1955 in Burkina Faso, he is a member of Baye Fall, a mystical brotherhood within the Sufi Islamic Mourides, founded in 1883 in Senegal, as a resistance to French colonialism.

Foto: Cheikh Lô | Rachot

And in the recognizable dress of the Baye Fall, he wears ragged clothes in patchworks of colors, and the more varied the better, to match his patchwork of musical styles. His hair is dreadlocked, like a Rasta, long to the ground, while his music is akin to prayer, both meditative and celebratory. It is an uplifting hybrid of acoustic and electronic instrumentation, combining Mbalax (poly-rhythmic percussion as the foundation), Cuban rhythms (Congolese rumba), jazz, and funk (James Brown).

And just as James Brown was called the “hardest working man in show business” Cheikh Lo works hard, but it’s according to his religious teachings, which prescribes this: “Pray to God as if you were going to die tomorrow, because if you think you are going to die tomorrow, you will pray a lot today.” Then there is a crucial rejoinder: “Work as if you were never going to die.”

As hard as he works, Cheikh Lo only releases albums every five years, and so his sixth as a leader, Maame, was released in 2025. This one features Czech guitarist Pavel Smid, who will join the show.

The other headliners are the rapturous Zawose Queens (Pendo and Leah Zawose) performing the fluid polyrhythms and celebratory polyphonic singing of the Gogo, a people of the Dodoma region of central Tanzania. The most famous musician of this tradition on illimba (like an mbira) is Pendo’s father and Leah’s grandfather, Hukwe Zawose, so they play their music deeply as ancestors, in their family blood.

Foto: Bobo & Behaja | Rachot

Other groups include Bobo & Behaja a Franco-Malagasy quintet with French saxophonist (Bobo) and virtuoso guitarist (Behaja) playing Tsapiky music, a fast-paced and rhythmically complex sound of Tulear region of Madagascar. It’s an exotic free jazz with sax, frenetic drumming and Tsapiky trance.

Odd Okoddo & Ogoya Nengo brings together the Dodo blues duo of Sven Kacirek (Germany) and Olith Ratego (Kenya) with electronic rhythms and folk traditions of the Kenyan Luo people. They will be joined by the queen of Luo music, at over 80 years old, Ogoya Nengo, of the Dodo Women’s Group.

Araw N Fazaz is a French-Moroccan collaboration with Leo Febre-Cartier (oud) and virtuoso musician, composer Younes Baami on vocals and loutar (a traditional Berber string instrument from Morocco).

Foto: Araw N Fazaz | Rachot

Meral Polat is a vocalist and songwriter influenced by Kurdish folk, modern jazz and blues. Polat’s lyrics are in Kurdish, Turkish, Greek and Farsi, all cultures that influence her music profoundly.

Guitari Baro is a West African trio, electric and acoustic guitarists rooted in their Mande griot heritage.

Muslim Shaggan is a singer from Pakistan playing Indian harmonium rooted in South Asian traditions.

Wassim Halal, a Lebanese/French percussionist with Amza Tairov, a Macedonian keyboardist in the Balkan Roma style, and Bulgarian avant-garde percussionist Gabriel Valtchev – do trance and groove.

And The Handover, a Belgian-Egyptian trio (oud, violin, keyboards) with trance-inducing music inspired by the ritual rhythms of Egypt, and influenced conceptually by the Australian improv maestros, The Necks, so expect one long approximately 45 minutes, slow-building to ecstatic jam.

All of these will be part of the Respect Festival 2026, on Saturday & Sunday, June 13 & 14.

For more information see the website: Respect Festival 2026 – Rachot


Respect Festival 2026
Saturday 13 and Sunday 14 June 2026
Ostrov Štvanice