Reggae

Reggae is a genre of music that began in Jamaica during the late 1960s. The term also describes the contemporary popular music of Jamaica and its global diaspora. The genre got its name from the 1968 single "Do the Reggay" by Toots and the Maytals, which was the first well-known song to feature the word, officially labeling the style and bringing it to listeners worldwide.

The sound grew out of earlier Jamaican styles like mento, ska, and rocksteady, and it draws from traditional drumming traditions such as Kumina, Pukkumina, Revival Zion, Nyabinghi, and burru. It also includes elements of rhythm and blues, jazz, mento (a rural folk music used for dancing and as an alternative to church singing, often confused with calypso by the 1950s), and traditional African folk rhythms.

Musically, reggae is slower than ska or rocksteady. It puts a strong emphasis on the downbeat in the drum and bass, while guitar or piano chords are played short and staccato on the offbeat. The bass guitar is central, with a thick, heavy tone and reduced high frequencies to highlight the low end. Call-and-response patterns are common, and the rhythm section often treats the bass like a percussion instrument, a trait carried over from rocksteady. Notable rhythm players include Jackie Jackson, Carlton Barrett, Lloyd Brevett, Paul Douglas, Lloyd Knibb, Winston Grennan, Sly Dunbar, and Anthony "Benbow" Creary. Vocals are usually in Jamaican Patois, Jamaican English, or Iyaric, and lyrics can cover political and social issues, religion, love, and leisure.

Reggae is strongly linked to Rastafari, an Afrocentric religion that started in Jamaica in the 1930s and promotes pan-Africanism. From the 1970s onward, the genre's global popularity helped spread Rastafarian ideas, with musicians often seen as cultural messengers and agents of change.

The music has reached audiences everywhere, often blending with other genres and using local instruments. In Latin America, reggae en Español began in Panama before spreading to Venezuela and across South America. In the United Kingdom, Caribbean music, including reggae, has been popular since the late 1960s, leading to many subgenres and fusions, with several reggae artists starting their careers there. European musicians have also borrowed heavily from Jamaican and Caribbean traditions. In Africa, the genre's profile rose after Bob Marley visited Zimbabwe in 1980.

The word "reggae" first appeared in the 1967 edition of the Dictionary of Jamaican English as a spelling for "rege," as in "rege-rege," which can mean "rags, ragged clothing" or "a quarrel, a row." It entered print as a musical term with the 1968 rocksteady hit "Do the Reggay" by the Maytals, which named the genre. Reggae historian Steve Barrow credits Clancy Eccles with changing the Jamaican patois word "streggae" (meaning a loose woman) into "reggae." But Toots Hibbert explained that "streggae" was used in Jamaica to describe someone who dressed poorly or looked ragged. He said that one morning while playing with two friends, he said, "OK man, let's do the reggay," and they started singing "Do the reggay, do the reggay" and created a beat. People later told him they had named the sound. Bob Marley claimed the word came from a Spanish term for "the king's music," while the liner notes for the Christian gospel reggae compilation *To the King* suggest it derived from the Latin "regi," meaning "to the king."

Reggae's direct roots are in the ska and rocksteady of 1960s Jamaica, strongly shaped by traditional mento (often called calypso due to confusion) and American jazz and rhythm and blues. Ska was a general term for Jamaican music recorded between 1961 and 1967, emerging from Jamaican R&B, which was based on American R&B and doo-wop. Rastafari entered some countries mainly through reggae music, so the movement in those places is heavily marked by its reggae origins and social setting. The Rastafari movement had a major influence on reggae, with Rasta drummers like Count Ossie taking part in key recordings. One predecessor of reggae drumming is the Nyabinghi rhythm, a ritual drumming style used for communal meditation in Rastafarian culture.

In the latter half of the 20th century, phonograph records became crucial to Jamaica's music industry, playing a major cultural and economic role in reggae's development. In the early 1950s, Jamaican entrepreneurs started releasing 78s, but this format was soon replaced by the 7-inch single, first issued in 1949. In 1951, the first mento recordings came out as singles, showing two styles: an acoustic rural type and a jazzy pop type. Other 7-inch singles in Jamaica around that time were covers of popular American R&B hits, made by Kingston sound system operators for public dances. Meanwhile, Jamaican expats began releasing 45s on small independent labels in the United Kingdom, many mastered directly from Jamaican 45s. Ska emerged in Jamaican studios in the late 1950s from this mix of American R&B and mento. Known for its jazz-influenced horn riffs, ska features a quarter-note walking bass line, guitar and piano offbeats, and a drum pattern with cross-stick snare and bass drum on the backbeat and open hi-hat on the offbeats. When Jamaica gained independence in 1962, ska became the music of choice for young Jamaicans.