Reggae
Reggae is a music unique to Jamiaca, but it ironically has its roots in New
Orleans R&B. Reggae's direct forefather is ska, an uptempo, rhythmic
variation based on the New Orleans R&B Jamaican musicians heard
broadcast from the US on their transistor radios. Relying on skittering guitar
and syncopated rhythms, ska was their interpretation of R&B and it was
quite popular in the early '60s. However, during one very hot summer, it
was too hot to either play or dance to ska, so the beat was slowed down and
reggae was born. Since then, reggae has proven to be as versatile as the
blues, as it lends itself to a number of interpretations, from the melodic rock
steady of Alton Ellis and the rock and folk-influenced songwriting of Bob
Marley to the trippy, near-psychedelic soundscapes of dub artists like Lee
"Scratch" Perry. It has crossed into the mainstream through the bright,
bouncy "reggae sunsplash" festivals and pop-oriented bands like UB40, but
more adventurous reggae artists, such as Marley and Perry, have influenced
countless reggae, folk, rock and dance artists. Their contributions resonate
throughout popular music.
Dancehall
Dancehall developed in the '80s as "ragamuffin," a hybrid style featuring a
DJ or "sing-jay" half-singing, half-rapping with often bawdy ("slack")
themes. The musical structure is rooted in reggae though the rhythms, played
by drum machines, are considerably faster. By the '90s, dancehall crossover
was common, with many gangsta-rappers incorporating dancehall rhythms
and its rapid-fire toasting. Major dancehall figures include Yellowman and
Shabba Ranks.
Ragga
Ragga refers to reggae in which the backing instrumentation (or the vast
majority of it) is digital. The style is most commonly associated with
dancehall, and while not all dancehall reggae is electronic (and therefore
not ragga), there is a great deal of overlap between the two. "Ragga" is
short for "raggamuffin," originally a term for a Kingston ghetto youth; the
music took on that name as it became the younger generation's style of
choice in the mid- to late '80s. Because of the relatively low costs of
building synthesized rhythms, ragga became the preferred mode for many
Jamaican producers as well, enabling them to turn out thousands of singles
per year, and to craft more adventurous new rhythms instead of simply
borrowing them from old rock steady records. This also led to the
explosion of the "rhythm album," for which different artists would record
their own lyrics and melodies over the same pre-existing rhythm track.
Although ragga is linked in the minds of many with deejay toasting,
straight-ahead singers often address romantic and Rastafarian concerns, and
the two vocal styles are frequently mixed as well. The first ragga record
was Wayne Smith's 1985 single "Under Me Sleng Teng," which was
produced by King Jammy and built around a rhythm that was discovered
pre-programmed on a Casio keyboard. Its impact was immediate, spawning
a host of imitators and establishing Jammy for a time as Jamaica's most
dominant producer. During the '90s, ragga remained firmly entrenched as
the most popular sound in Jamaican dancehalls. It began to incorporate
hip-hop sampling techniques, and several of its artists scored pop crossover
hits in the U.S.; ragga was also an important influence on the U.K.'s thriving
jungle/drum'n'bass scene.
Ska
Ska marked the true beginning of Jamaican popular music, coming to
prominence during the early and mid-'60s right around the time the island
was granted its independence. Ska ensembles were generally a blend of
electric instrumentation and horns most popular in jazz (saxophone, trumpet,
trombone).
Although structurally simple, ska has a bevy of influences, synthesizing
American R&B, jump blues, Jamaican mento, calypso and other Caribbean
styles, big-band swing, Afro-Cuban jazz, pocomania and other local
religious folk music, and European ballroom dances. Of those, the first
three -- R&B, jump blues, and mento -- were the most important building
blocks. Jump blues tunes -- both sax-driven instrumentals and vocal
numbers by artists like Wynonie Harris and Louis Jordan -- had become
wildly popular at Jamaican dance parties, with sound-system operators
making frequent trips to the U.S. searching for the hottest and rarest 45s. As
R&B shifted into rock & roll, less crossover-oriented American performers
like Little Richard and Fats Domino also became Jamaican favorites. In
1959, when the boogie beat had become less important in rock-oriented
R&B, top sound-system owners like Clement "Coxsone" Dodd and Duke
Reid (as well as restaurateur-cum-producer Leslie Kong) took matters into
their own hands, forming their own labels, acting as producers for local
talent, and recording the music their audiences wanted to hear when it was
no longer readily available in the U.S. From there, the music took on
distinctly Jamaican characteristics, melding influences from all the different
styles in which Jamaican instrumentalists had been trained. The most
important of these was mento, Jamaica's first indigenous musical form; it
was essentially a blend of Caribbean calypso and Jamaican folk music.
Mento ensembles used the banjo to play chords on the off-beat, and when
this practice was transferred to Jamaican R&B recordings, those off beats
were punched up and strongly emphasized because of R&B's emphasis on
driving rhythm. This was essentially the birth of ska, and that rhythmic
emphasis continued to dominate Jamaican music for decades to come.
Important ska vocalists included Derrick Morgan, Laurel Aitken, Prince
Buster (himself a sound system owner), Desmond Dekker, Toots & the
Maytals, and the very young Bob Marley and the Wailers; the Skatalites,
featuring a number of virtuosic soloists and led by the mercurial trombonist
Don Drummond, were far and away the top instrumental group, and also
served as the house backing band for Coxsone Dodd's prolific Studio One.
Ska's popularity declined in 1966, when the slower, cooler rock steady
style found favor with younger listeners during the particularly hot summer;
moreover, ska lost one of its top performers that year when Don Drummond
was arrested for the murder of his girlfriend and committed to an institution
(he died there several years later). Ska enjoyed a brief and popular revival
in the U.K. during the late '70s and early '80s, thanks to the enthusiasm of
many British punk fans for reggae records, and the skipping, infectious ska
beat in particular. A more rock-oriented take on ska became popular in the
U.S. during the '90s, although it was much farther removed from the music's
Jamaican origins than the British version had been.
Dub
Dub derives its name from the practice of dubbing instrumental,
rhythm-oriented versions of reggae songs onto the B-sides of 45 rpm
singles, which evolved into a legitimate and accepted style of its own as
those re-recordings became forums for engineers to experiment with the
possibilities of their mixing consoles. The practice of re-recording reggae
tracks without vocals dated back to 1967, when DJs found that dancehall
crowds and partygoers greatly enjoyed being given the opportunity to sing
the lyrics themselves. Around 1969, some DJs began talking, or "toasting,"
over these instrumentals (known as "versions"), frequently reinterpreting the
already familiar original lyrics. The most important early DJ was U-Roy,
who became renowned for his ability to improvise dialogues with the
recorded singers; U-Roy ran the sound system owned by engineer King
Tubby, who mixed all of the instrumental tracks over which his DJ toasted.
Eventually, Tubby began to experiment with remixing the instrumental
tracks, bringing up the level of the rhythm section, dropping out most or all
of the vocals, and adding new effects like reverb and echo. The results
were seen by many reggae fans as stripping the music down to its purest
essence. 45-rpm singles with dub versions on the B-sides became
ubiquitous, and King Tubby's credit on the back soon became a drawing
card in and of itself. Full-fledged dub albums began to appear in 1973, with
many highlights stemming from Tubby's mixes for producers Bunny Lee and
Augustus Pablo (the latter of whom also played the haunting melodica,
which became one of dub's signature added elements); other key early
producers included the minimalistic Keith Hudson and the colorful,
elaborate Lee "Scratch" Perry. By 1976, dub's popularity in Jamaica was
second only to Rastafarian roots reggae, and the sound had also found
acceptance the U.K. (thanks largely to the Island label), where roots reggae
artists like Burning Spear and Black Uhuru became just as well-known for
their forays into dub. The Mad Professor and the experimental Adrian
Sherwood helped Britain's dub scene remain vital in the '80s, but in spite of
skilled newcomers like Scientist, Prince Jammy, and Mikey Dread,
Jamaican popular taste had by then shifted to DJ toasters and lyrical
improvisers, which led to the prominence of dancehall and ragga. The
downtempo atmospherics and bass- and rhythm-heavy textures of dub had a
lasting influence outside of reggae, beginning with Public Image Ltd.'s 1979
Metal Box/Second Edition album; during the '90s, dub was frequently
incorporated into the melting-pot eclecticism of underground avant-garde
rock, and Britain's thriving electronica/drum'n'bass scene owed a great deal
to dub's mixing and production techniques.
Lovers Rock
A romantic, R&B-influenced form of reggae, Lovers Rock was a product of
the U.K. reggae scene, becoming popular in the late '70s as mainstream
roots reggae increasingly devoted itself to social protest and Rastafarian
spirituality. From ska to reggae, Jamaican music had long been influenced
by American soul, but lovers rock blurred the lines to a greater extent than
ever before, pairing the smooth sounds of Chicago and Philly soul with
reggae basslines and, to a greater or lesser extent, rhythms. Teenage
vocalist Louisa Marks was the first British artist to score a lovers rock hit
with her 1975 single "Caught You in a Lie"; in the years that followed,
lovers rock became quite popular among inner-city Britons looking for an
alternative to political reggae. While never quite prevalent in Jamaica,
lovers rock was adopted as an alternate style by several major roots-reggae
figures, including John Holt, Gregory Isaacs, Dennis Brown, and Freddie
McGregor, who used it to broaden their repertoires and appeal to wider
audiences. Dancehall vocalist Sugar Minott adopted a similar tactic during
the '80s when he relocated from Jamaica to the U.K. Lovers rock
maintained its popularity with its core urban audience into the '90s, and
while it remained a style that few artists pursued exclusively, it helped
singer Maxi Priest score several international hit singles.
Reggae Pop
Reggae-Pop has its foundation in reggae, but the music is tempered with
strong, melodic hooks, commercial production, and a crossover sensibility.
Sometimes, reggae-pop is performed by pop bands seeking to diversify
their sounds, but more often it's played by reggae artists with a fondness for
pop. During the '70s, such diverse rockers as Eric Clapton and the Clash
experimented with reggae, and the entire 2-Tone ska revival movement of
the early '80s was closely aligned with reggae. Nevertheless, it wasn't until
the '80s -- when artists like UB40, Eddy Grant, and Maxi Priest all
established a place for it on the charts -- that reggae-pop became part of the
mass consciousness. Reggae-pop first surfaced in the mid-'80s, and
flourished toward the end of the decade, as those previously mentioned
artists had crossover hits. During the '90s, the style remained strong, even if
there weren't as many crossover hits as there were in the late '80s and early
'90s.
