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Reggae
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Primary Stylistic Influences (Roots Reggae):
  • Ska, Rocksteady
Secondary Stylistic Influences (Roots Reggae):

Primary Stylistic Influences (Dub):
Secondary Stylistic Influences (Dub):

Primary Stylistic Influences (Dancehall):
Secondary Stylistic Influences (Dancehall):

Reggae is Jamaica's most famous musical genre, emerging at the end of The '60s. You probably know it because it was popularised outside Jamaica by Bob Marley. Despite that, he wasn't the first reggae musician, not even the first to have some level of international popularity.

Reggae has roots in two earlier Jamaican genres. Ska became hugely popular on the island earlier in the decade, with its pulsating rhythm based on emphasized off-beats. In 1966, it was eclipsed by "rocksteady", which amounted to a slower, more stripped down version of ska (with the reduction in tempo allegedly adopted as a way to help stay cool during a hotter-than-normal summer), centered on the guitar being used almost exclusively as a rhythm instrument, mostly as "skank" (short, dampened, choppy sound) on the two and four beats. Local musicians and record producers, taking influence from the innovations happening in Rock and Soul music, started playing around with the basic rocksteady beat, adding things like syncopation, elaborate bass lines and extensive use of keyboards, and a new, separate genre emerged by 1968, with a name derived from a Jamaican patois slang term for "ragged".

The genre's dominant trait, inherited from ska and rocksteady, is the "one drop" rhythm, whereby the first beat of a bar is completely empty and the emphasis is on the third instead. This proved be a very flexible base to add many embellishments, while maintaining an appealing harmonic simplicity. The rise of the Rastafari religion in Jamaica also exerted a major influence on the genre's lyrics and culture.

One of the first notable reggae songs was "Israelites" by Desmond Dekker, which became an international hit in 1969. At the start of the 1970s the first popular reggae artist to score hits outside of Jamaica was Jimmy Cliff, best known for "Wonderful World, Beautiful People", "You Can Get It If You Really Want", "Many Rivers To Cross" and "The Harder They Come", all made famous by Jamaica's first feature film The Harder They Come, in which Cliff himself played the starring role. The feature became a Cult Classic in Jamaica and in the midnight movie circuit in the USA, also thanks to its soundtrack which was bought even by people who never saw the movie in their entire life. In the wake of its popularity Bob Marley & The Wailers, who were already well known in the Caribbean at this point (having made first made their names doing ska and rocksteady) became the first reggae artists to record an entire album, Catch a Fire (1972) in the same conditions as a Western rock band. His next albums provided huge mainstream hit singles like "I Shot The Sherrif", "Get Up, Stand Up" (from Burnin'), "No Woman, No Cry" (from Natty Dread, but more popular in the live version found on Live! (1976)), "Roots, Rock Reggae" (Rastaman Vibration (1976), "Exodus", "Jammin'", "One Love" (Exodus (1977)), "Redemption Song", "Could You Be Loved?" (Uprising (1980)) and "Buffalo Soldier" (Confrontation (1981)), which further solidified his international superstardom. Marley made reggae so popular that countless Jamaican artists now got their own chance to record albums. By the end of the 1970s several new wave and punk bands and ska groups in Western countries started playing their own reggae music, including Madness, The Police, The Specials, The Clash, UB40, the tremendously popular Dutch band Doe Maar, among others. Reggae also had a big cultural impact in New Zealand, particularly after Bob Marley toured there in 1979, inspiring the formation of various bands including Herbs during the 1980s and more recently Fat Freddy's Drop, Katchafire, and The Black Seeds.

The genre itself developed since and gave rise to several other subgenres, such as:

  • Dub music, probably the most famous offshoot. "Dub" basically means instrumental remixes of songs, emphasising the drum and bass (you'll find this basic track referred to as "riddim"), adding short snatches of vocals and soaking everything in lots of reverb and other studio effects. Got started as a distinct subgenre in The '70s thanks to guys like Errol Thompson, Lee "Scratch" Perry and Herman Chin Loy. Insanely influential on Electronic Music (especially drum and bass and Dubstep), Punk Rock, Post-Punk, Hip-Hop and Trip Hop, possibly more so than reggae itself.
  • Roots reggae, like normal reggae except the lyrics are largely concerned with spiritual matters and social critiques. Exponents of this include: Burning Spear, Johnny Clarke, Horace Andy (yes, the guy who works with Massive Attack), Big Youth, Culture, The Meditations, and others.
  • Rockers, a more aggressive way of playing reggae created by Sly and Robbie in the mid-1970s.
  • Lovers rock, which emerged in The '70s out of South London and consists of reggae love songs. Examples of this include: Gregory Isaacs, Freddy McGregor, Dennis Brown, Maxi Priest and Beres Hammond.
  • Dancehall, probably the most divisive genre on the list. This genre uses electronic instrumentation and Sampling a lot, and involves a deejay singing and rapping or toasting over raw and fast rhythms, so it's probably closer to Hip-Hop than reggae itself. Examples of this would be: Sean Paul, Beenie Man, Yellowman, King Jammy, Shabba Ranks, Elephant Man, Buju Banton and others. The genre's sadly infamous for aggressive, violently homophobic lyrics - for example, Buju Banton's 1993 hit "Boom Bye Bye" is about executing gay men. Probably the main source of protests and controversy due to the severe Values Dissonance between Jamaica and the rest of the Western countries over LGBT rights. Spawned a more minimalist, purely electronic off-shot in the 1980s entitled digital dancehall, originally pioneered by Prince Jammy with the aid of a Casio keyboard preset (dubbed the "Sleng Teng Riddim").
  • Reggaeton, an uptempo, drum and bass driven fusion of reggae with Hip-Hop and Latin American influences, with its roots in Puerto Rico. The name is also used on occasion to refer to the fusion of reggae and dubstep, with the connotation there being a play off of "Megaton". Lyrics are usually ''very'' dirty but they can also be cheeky and flirty about it.
  • Reggae Rock, which combines reggae or one of its other sub-genres with rock instrumentation. Examples include 311, No Doubt, Sublime and the Police.

Reggae/Ska performers:

Tropes associated with the genre.

  • Covered Up: Covering non-reggae songs used to be fairly common and some become more popular than the originals in the Caribbean.
  • Epic Rocking: Some tracks can go on for quite a few minutes.
  • Genre Mashup: Modern day reggae artists like Rebelution, The Expendables, Slightly Stoopid have been known to mix the genre with others. Most commonly funk and hip hop. The genre's also been mixed with Progressive Rock as a lot of bands like Tribal Seeds, SOJA, and Rebelution have.
  • God-Is-Love Songs: Expect the name Jah and/or Marcus Garvey to be praised at least once on an album.
  • Sampling: Sampling is fairly common in dancehall and there can be several songs with the same "riddim" (rhythm/instrumental).
  • The Stoner: There's a reason why it got this reputation... No really it's completely justified giving that marijuana is a huge part of Rastafarian/Jamaican culture. In addition to that, there is a slew of songs about getting high.
  • Three Chords and the Truth: Guitar tracks on reggae are known for being simple "Skank" or ska-stroke which is typically played on the off beat.
    • Though, this style of playing is typically only done with guitars. Bass-lines in reggae are far more complex than just three chords.
  • The Unintelligible: The patois accent and stoned mumbling often making it difficult to understand what the singers are saying, especially when you're not familiar with some of the local expressions.
  • Watch It Stoned: Well... listen to it stoned. Though, it's generally agreed by the fanbase that you don't need it to enjoy it, but rather need it to enjoy it to its full experience.

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