Reggae

• 1. Introduction

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  Reggae was named by accident. One morning in Jamaica, Toots Hibbert and two friends started playing around, and he called out, "OK man, let's do the reggay." As Hibbert later recalled, "It was just something that came out of my mouth." That offhand phrase became the title of a 1968 single, "Do the Reggay" by Toots and the Maytals, and with it, a genre had its name. Before that record, people called the sound blue-beat, or simply used whatever term was at hand. After it, there was reggae. What gave this music from Jamaica its particular power? How did it travel from downtown Kingston's sound system dances to concert stages in Zimbabwe, festival grounds in Germany, and radio stations across South America? And what does it say about Jamaica, about resistance, and about the long reach of a small island's musical imagination?

• 2. Roots in the Yard

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  Ska was the sound of Jamaican independence. When Jamaica gained independence in 1962, ska became the music of choice for young Jamaicans seeking something they could call their own. It had grown from a blend of American rhythm and blues, doo-wop, and mento, a rural Jamaican folk form that doubled as dance music and an alternative to church singing. By the 1950s, mento was often conflated with calypso. Its character was different: acoustic, earthbound, rooted in the countryside rather than the city. Jamaican entrepreneurs began issuing 78s in the early 1950s, and the first mento singles followed in 1951, arriving in two distinct styles: an acoustic rural mode and a jazzier, more polished pop sound. Kingston sound system operators also pressed covers of American R&B hits to play at public dances. Meanwhile, Jamaican expatriates started pressing their own 45s on small independent labels in the United Kingdom. All of these currents fed into ska, which took shape in Jamaican studios in the late 1950s and was characterized by jazz-influenced horn riffs, a walking bass line, and guitar and piano offbeats. By the mid-1960s, ska slowed down into rocksteady, a genre with more romantic lyrics and less prominent horns. One widely told story credits the singer Hopeton Lewis: he was reportedly unable to perform his hit "Take It Easy" at ska tempo, and the slowing-down stuck. The name rocksteady itself was codified after the release of a single by Alton Ellis. From rocksteady, reggae emerged at the end of the decade, carrying the rhythm section's dominance even further and bringing in the organ shuffle pioneered by musicians like Jackie Mittoo and Winston Wright.

• 3. The Sound Defined

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  The bass guitar is reggae's spine. Unlike most popular music, which anchors itself to beat one, reggae accents the second and fourth beats, with the drum emphasizing beat three and staccato guitar or piano chords landing on the offbeats. This rhythmic feature, commonly called the skank, creates a sense of suspended forward motion that listeners around the world would come to recognize instantly. Notable rhythm players who shaped that sound include Carlton Barrett, Lloyd Brevett, Sly Dunbar, and Jackie Jackson, among others named by the genre's chroniclers. The bass in reggae carries a thick, heavy tone, with high frequencies reduced to push the low end forward. Percussion patterns drew from deep Jamaican roots, including the Nyabinghi rhythm, a ritual drumming style practiced communally in Rastafarian culture. Vocals moved between Jamaican Patois, Jamaican English, and Iyaric, a language associated with Rastafari. Lyrics ranged widely: social and political commentary, religious reflection, love, and leisure. Many early reggae bands covered Motown or Atlantic soul and funk songs. Others directed listeners toward questions of apartheid, black nationalism, anti-colonialism, and what reggae culture calls "Babylon," a term for oppressive political and economic systems. A three-piece horn section of trumpet, trombone, and saxophone also featured regularly, creating harmonies the genre made its own. The reggae organ-shuffle, developed in the earliest phase of the genre, allowed the piano to function as a percussion instrument, weaving into the rhythm section rather than standing apart from it.

• 4. Rastafari and the Message

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  Rastafari, the Afrocentric religion that emerged in Jamaica in the 1930s, gave reggae much of its moral and spiritual gravity. The movement promoted pan-Africanism and shaped the worldview of many of reggae's most significant musicians. Rasta drummers like Count Ossie took part in some of the genre's seminal early recordings. From the 1970s onward, reggae's international success carried Rastafarian ideas to countries where the religion had no prior presence. In those places, reggae itself became the primary vehicle through which people encountered the movement, meaning the music's social milieu shaped how Rastafari was understood abroad. Many cannabis references in reggae lyrics connect directly to Rastafarian practice, in which the plant is considered a sacrament. Songs promoting black nationalism, anti-racism, and criticism of colonial history carried the movement's broader commitments into global popular culture. Musicians were understood by many listeners as cultural messengers and agents of change, not merely entertainers. Bob Marley's visit to Zimbabwe on Independence Day, the 18th of April 1980, illustrated how completely this role had taken hold, with reggae amplifying the symbolic weight of a newly independent African nation's celebrations.

• 5. Going International

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  Between 1968 and 1972, reggae sales in the United Kingdom exceeded those in Jamaica itself. During 1970 alone, Trojan and its partner label B&C released approximately 500 singles across more than thirty labels, with sales exceeding two million copies. Many of those British releases were remixed, remastered, or overdubbed with additional orchestration by British licensees to make them more accessible to mainstream pop audiences. Jamaican artists, according to Lloyd Bradley, often found that their British pressings sounded substantially different from the originals. Chris Blackwell, who had founded Island Records in Jamaica in 1960, relocated to England in 1962 and continued promoting Jamaican music there. His partnership with Lee Gopthal's Trojan Records in 1968 gave reggae a dedicated commercial infrastructure in the UK until Trojan was bought by Saga Records in 1974. American audiences got their introduction more gradually. Johnny Nash's 1968 hit "Hold Me Tight" is credited with first placing reggae on the American listener charts. By late 1972, reggae's influence had reached the top of the U.S. Billboard Hot 100: Three Dog Night hit number one in September with a cover of the Maytones' version of "Black and White", and Johnny Nash then held the top spot for four weeks in November with "I Can See Clearly Now". Paul Simon's "Mother and Child Reunion," recorded in Kingston, Jamaica with Jimmy Cliff's backing group, was ranked by Billboard as the number 57 song of that year. Eric Clapton's 1974 cover of Bob Marley's "I Shot the Sheriff" brought the music to mainstream rock radio stations worldwide, using modern rock production while retaining most of the original reggae elements. By the mid-1970s, John Peel's radio show was giving exposure to authentic reggae dub plates in the UK, a role he continued until the end of his career. The Wailers, formed by Bob Marley, Peter Tosh, and Bunny Wailer in 1963, had navigated all three stages of early Jamaican popular music, from ska through rocksteady into reggae, and their catalogue became the genre's most recognized body of work globally.

• 6. Punk, Lovers Rock, and the British Scene

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  In the late 1970s and early 1980s, the UK punk scene drew heavily on reggae. DJ Don Letts played reggae and punk tracks side by side at venues including The Roxy, and punk bands like the Clash, the Ruts, the Members, the Police, and the Slits recorded reggae-influenced songs. Three reggae-tinged singles from the Police's 1978 debut album, Outlandos d'Amour, defined a template for combining reggae-infused verses with a harder punk attack during choruses. At the end of the 1970s, a ska revival gathered around bands like the Specials, Madness, the English Beat, and the Selecter. The Specials' leader Jerry Dammers founded the 2 Tone record label, which released music from racially integrated groups and helped create new social and cultural awareness around race in Britain. Meanwhile, in South London, a new subgenre called lovers rock took shape. Unlike the Jamaican music of the same name, which was mainly led by male artists like Gregory Isaacs, the South London version was driven by female singers like Carroll Thompson and Janet Kay. It carried a softer, more commercial sound. Other reggae artists finding international audiences in the early 1980s included Third World, Black Uhuru, and Sugar Minott. The Birmingham band UB40 became major contributors to the British reggae scene throughout the 1980s and 1990s, with international hits including "Red Red Wine", "Kingston Town", and "(I Can't Help) Falling in Love with You." Singer Maxi Priest began his career with the British sound system Saxon Studio International before becoming a Grammy Award-winning artist. The Grammy Awards introduced the Best Reggae Album category in 1985.

• 7. A World Genre

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  Reggae en Espanol originated in Panama before spreading to Venezuela and across South America, sung in Spanish by Latin American artists and carrying themes of rebellious contestation rooted in the region's social conditions. In Brazil, it was the bloco afro Olodum and its lead percussionist Neguinho do Samba that first blended samba rhythms with merengue, salsa, and reggae at the carnival of 1986, creating what became known as samba-reggae. The northeastern Brazilian state of Maranhao developed its own reggae scene with distinct melody and dance styles. Its capital, Sao Luis, is known as the Brazilian Jamaica and hosts more than 200 radiolas, the name for DJ-led sound systems with stacks of powerful amplifiers. In 2018 the Reggae Museum of Maranhao opened there, the second reggae museum in the world after Jamaica. In Africa, South African artist Lucky Dube recorded 25 albums fusing reggae with Mbaqanga. In the Ivory Coast, both Tiken Jah Fakoly and Alpha Blondy built careers fusing reggae with local traditions and religious lyrics. New Zealand reggae was shaped by Bob Marley's 1979 tour of the country. European reggae scenes developed their own distinct characters: Summerjam in Cologne, Germany draws crowds of 25,000 or more, and Rototom Sunsplash, now held in Benicassim, Spain, gathers up to 150,000 visitors annually. Italian artist Alborosie has lived in Jamaica since the late 1990s, recording at Bob Marley's Tuff Gong Studios and releasing music on Jamaican labels. In November 2018, UNESCO added the "reggae music of Jamaica" to its Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity, recognizing the genre's contribution to international discourse on issues of injustice, resistance, love, and humanity. Reggae Month, first declared in February 2008 by Jamaican Prime Minister Bruce Golding, brought together the first Reggae Academy Awards, a Global Reggae conference, a reggae film festival, radio award functions, and a concert tribute to Dennis Brown, whom Bob Marley cited as his favorite singer.