Reggae

Reggae

Reggae is the heartbeat of Jamaica. The term includes everything from the "upbeat grooves of ska and the spooky sounds of dub to the aggressive beats of dancehall," at its core reggae music is all about the one-drop rhythm, which features the bass drum disappearing on the first beat and coming in strong with the snare on the third as the keyboards and guitars add syncopated accents on the two and the four.

The origin of the word "reggae" is open to debate. Some say it's the distortion of "streggae," slang for prostitute, while other say it's just a made-up name of no particular origin. Toots and Maytals were the first to use the word on record, however, with the 1968 single "Do the Reggay" (the word's spelling hadn't been formalized yet).

In the late 1950s and early 1960s Jamaican musicians took a Jamaican folk style called mento and mixed it with American jazz and especially R&B to create ska. As with R&B, the drumbeats were emphasized on the second and fourth bars, but it was the syncopated guitar or piano accents, which came from mento, on the upbeats that gave ska its distinctive energy. By 1966 the tunes had slowed into a style called rocksteady, which featured soulful vocalists and bass lines that took on a more prominent and free-ranging role. By 1968 the tempo had switched again, the one-drop rhythm came to form and reggae was born.

Popular Reggae Songs:
 * No Woman, No Cry - Bob Marley & the Wailers
 * Israelites - Desmond Dekker & the Acees
 * Pressure Drop - Toots & the Maytals

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