Africa Oye and Liverpool's African and Caribbean Food (2026)

There is a weekend every June when a corner of Sefton Park fills with drums and horns and the smell of jerk and grilled plantain drifting across the grass, and Liverpool comes out in its thousands to enjoy it. Africa Oye has become one of the warmest fixtures in the city's calendar, a free two days of music from across Africa and the Caribbean that anyone can walk into, whether they have followed the artists for years or wandered over on a sunny afternoon.

Part of its magic is that it belongs to everyone. Families spread blankets, friends share plates from the food stalls, and the crowd moves between the main stage and the rows of craft and traders' stalls without anyone checking a ticket. It is a celebration of heritage and belonging as much as a concert, a reminder of how deep African and Caribbean roots run in this city.

That feeling does not have to end when the last set finishes on Sunday evening. The food that draws so many to the stalls, the jerk chicken, the West African rice dishes, the spiced stews, is cooked in kitchens and sold in shops across Liverpool every week of the year. Africa Oye is the celebration; the everyday version is a short walk or drive away.

What Is Africa Oye

Africa Oye is the largest free celebration of African and Caribbean music and culture in the UK. Held each June in Sefton Park, it brings live music from across the African continent and the Caribbean diaspora to one open, welcoming setting, with performers ranging from established international names to newer artists. The stage is the heart of it, but the festival is built around more than the line up: rows of food stalls and craft and traders' stalls turn the day into a full experience of African and Caribbean culture rather than a concert alone.

The two things people mention most are that it is free and that it feels open to all. There is no gate charge, the crowd is broad and easy going, and the atmosphere is more community gathering than ticketed event. The festival is run by a charity, also called Africa Oye, whose purpose is to promote and celebrate this music and culture, and that spirit shows in how the weekend is put together. You may also see the name written with an accent, Africa Oye, as its styled spelling.

The History of Africa Oye

Africa Oye began in 1992 as a series of small gigs in Liverpool city centre. From those modest beginnings it grew steadily in size and reputation, and in 2002 it moved to Sefton Park, which has been its home ever since. The park's wide green space gave the festival room to expand, and over the years it has become one of the city's best loved summer events.

The scale of that growth is striking. From a handful of city centre shows, Africa Oye now draws tens of thousands of people across its weekend, with around 80,000 attending at its 25th anniversary in 2017. Thirty years on from its first gigs, it stands as a landmark on Liverpool's cultural calendar and a genuine point of pride for the city's African and Caribbean communities, still free to enter and still run by the charity that carries its name.

The Music Food and Craft Stalls

The music is the reason most people come, and the programme reaches right across African and Caribbean sounds, so a single afternoon might move from West African rhythms to reggae to something newer and harder to label. Because it is free and set in an open park, people drift in and out, dance near the stage or listen from a blanket further back, and the mood stays relaxed all day.

Around the music sit the stalls that give the festival its flavour. African and Caribbean food stalls serve the dishes the crowd queues happily for, from jerk and grilled meats to rice dishes and stews, while craft and traders' stalls offer fabrics, art, jewellery and more. Between sets, wandering the stalls with a plate of food is as much a part of the Africa Oye day as the headline acts, and it is often where people discover a dish or a maker they go looking for again afterwards.

African and Caribbean Food in Liverpool All Year Round

The good news for anyone who leaves Sefton Park still thinking about the food is that Liverpool cooks and sells it all year. The city has Caribbean restaurants and takeaways dotted around, serving the jerk, curried goat, rice and peas and patties that the festival stalls give a taste of. There is also a cluster of Ethiopian and Eritrean places around Kensington, where you can sit down to injera and spiced stews and, in some, a traditional coffee ceremony.

For cooking it yourself, the African and Caribbean food shops of Liverpool are where the ingredients live. You will find them around County Road in Walton, around Kensington, and in the Granby and Lodge Lane area of Toxteth, which has long been the heart of Black Liverpool. Between them these shops stock the yam, plantain, scotch bonnets, spices, rice, salt fish and hard to find provisions that African and Caribbean home cooking depends on. If you want a starting point, our guides to Caribbean food, Nigerian food and Ethiopian food explain the dishes and staples, and our guide to jerk chicken covers one of the flavours you will taste at the festival stalls.

Where to Find African and Caribbean Food Near You

Africa Oye is the once a year celebration, but the food, ingredients and welcome are here every week. To eat out, you can browse African and Caribbean restaurants near you and find the Caribbean, Ethiopian, Eritrean and West African kitchens around the city. To cook at home, the homepage finder lists African and Caribbean food shops near you, so you can head to the grocers on County Road, in Kensington or around Granby and Lodge Lane and pick up exactly what a recipe calls for. Whether you first tasted it at Sefton Park or grew up with it, African Stores helps you find that taste of home wherever you are in Liverpool and beyond.