Rebel Salute is an annual music festival

Music festival

A music festival is a festival oriented towards music that is sometimes presented with a theme such as musical genre, nationality or locality of musicians, or holiday. They are commonly held outdoors, and are often inclusive of other attractions such as food and merchandise vending machines,...

 held in Jamaica

Jamaica

Jamaica is an island nation of the Greater Antilles, in length, up to in width and 10,990 square kilometres in area. It is situated in the Caribbean Sea, about south of Cuba, and west of Hispaniola, the island harbouring the nation-states Haiti and the Dominican Republic...

. It is held on January 15th of every year, the birthday of promoter Tony Rebel

Tony Rebel

Tony Rebel is a Jamaican reggae deejay. He was initially a singer, appearing as Papa Tony or Tony Ranking in local talent contests and on sound systems including Sugar Minott's 'Youth Promotion'...

. It is one of Jamaica's biggest music festivals, known for its focus on roots and conscious music. Rebel began the festival in 1994 in the parish of Mandeville

Mandeville, Jamaica

Mandeville is the capital and largest town in the parish of Manchester in the county of Middlesex, Jamaica. In 2005, the town had an estimated population of 50,000, and including the immediate suburbs within a radius of the total population is about 72,000. It is located on an inland plateau at an...

; it is now held every year in St. Elizabeth on the country's south coast.

The festival is now billed as the Pepsi Rebel Salute after a three-year sponsorship agreement with PepsiCo

PepsiCo

PepsiCo Inc. is an American multinational corporation headquartered in Purchase, New York, United States, with interests in the manufacturing, marketing and distribution of grain-based snack foods, beverages, and other products. PepsiCo was formed in 1965 with the merger of the Pepsi-Cola Company...

. Festival producers stated they pursued the agreement as Pepsi products were more in-line with the festival's stance, which allows no alcohol and no meat. The festival has also featured dancehall

Dancehall

Dancehall is a genre of Jamaican popular music that originated in the late 1970s. Initially dancehall was a more sparse version of reggae than the roots style, which had dominated much of the 1970s. In the mid-1980s, digital instrumentation became more prevalent, changing the sound considerably,...

 performers not normally known for "conscious" lyrics by billing them under their birth name, rather than their stage name

Stage name

A stage name, also called a showbiz name or screen name, is a pseudonym used by performers and entertainers such as actors, wrestlers, comedians, and musicians.-Motivation to use a stage name:...

, in order to highlight their "good side", according to Tony Rebel.