About reggae

Reggae is a unique type of music which became popular through artists like Bob Marley. A sound of its own with a relaxed beat that makes people feel at ease and joyful, reggae is not a favorite genre for everyone. The popular genres still remain rock and pop.

Reggae music originated from Jamaica in the late 1960s and was made popular by international famed artist Bob Marley, Bunny Wailer and Peter Tosh. Marley's lyrics were about love, natural beauty, sexuality, relationships, poverty, injustice redemption and other social and political issues which captivated audiences, and he became famous for being able to negotiate truces between the two opposition Jamaican political parties at the One Love Concert led by Edward Seaga (JLP) and Michael Manley (PNP). Reggae music was a connection to the expansion of Rastafarian religion, and its principles of pacifism and pan-Africanism. Early sounds of reggae was solidified by musicians like The Congos, Gregory Isaacs and Burning Spear and producers like Lee `Scratch' Perry.

When generalizing Reggae music is referred to as Jamaican music but the term reggae denotes a particular style of music that originated from the development of ska and rocksteady. Ska music was also a development of the mento genre, and was made popular over the years of 1959 and 1961.

From late 1960s to the early 1980s, a piano was generally used to double the rhythm guitar but in 1980s the synthesizers were used. The reggae-organ shuffle, which should usually be the Hammond organ, is unique to reggae. There are particular settings used on a Hammond console to get the correct sound. The 8th beats are played with a space-left-right-left-space-left-right-left pattern. Other instruments that are specific to reggae is the saxophone, trumpet and/or trombone. Vocals can be used on reggae style often with harmony parts being used.

Reggae is based on a rhythm which is characterized by regular beats on the off-beat, which is known as the skank. Reggae is known to be slower than ska with accents on the third beat in each bar.

The word reggae first appeared in print in 1968 with the rocksteady `Do the Reggae' by `The Maytals' but this word was already in use in Kingston, Jamaica as a name for slower dance and style of rocksteady. Derrick Morgan state that they did not like the name rocksteady so he tried a different version of `Fat Man` which changed the beat again. The producer Bunny Lee liked that, and he created the sound with the rhythm guitar and the organ and it sounded like `reggae, reggae` and that name just stuck. Earlier people called it blue-beat.

Reggae records such as `Nanny Goat` by Larry Marshall and `No More Headaches` by the Beltones came into being in early 1968 but reggae music was put on the map in America by American artist Johnny Nash's 1968 hit `Hold Me Tight'. `The Wailers' was a band that was started by Bob Marley, Bunny Wailer and Peter Tosh in 1963 is easily the most well known group internationally who made the transition through ska hits like `Summer Down`, to slower rocksteady and to pioneer reggae along with Desmond Dekker, Prince Buster, Jackie Mittoo and several others.

Others who were responsible for the development of ska into rocksteady and to reggae in the 1960s include Coxsone Dodd, Leslie Kong, Duke Reid, Joe Gibbs and King Tubby. Chris Blackwell was another producer who founded Island Records in Jamaica in 1960 and relocated to England in 1962, where he continued to promote Jamaican music. He partnered with Trojan Records, founded by Lee Gopthal in 1968 and released recordings by reggae artists in the UK until Saga bought the label in 1974. Reggae music continues to gain popularity and seen being coined with different styles of music.