Roots Archives Forum

My mates father had a wall full of Reggae-records, which always looked really impressive. He did put some Bob Marley and Burning Spear stuff on a tape for me when i was 14 or so.. I kinda liked it, but got only really cought by this music when i heard Doctor Alimantado, Augustus Pablo, Michigan&Smiley.. a little later.
Bought almost strictly DJs/toasters records for a long time..

My neighbourhood growing up. It was playing at friends houses in public school, at our dances in grade 7/8 and up, booming on boxes on the bus/car stereos on the street, and became legendary at bashment parties in high school basements. It was easy really.

For me, via punk. I was always curious about reggae because of my interest in bands like The Slits and Public Image Ltd. That said, it took me a while to finally "get it". When I got married and my record collection merged with the missus' I started listening to her Lee Scratch Perry records... and I was totally hooked from that point on.

I went to a Lee Perry gig, and that was that.

Usual story.
Living in a non-english speaking country in the 70s (nobody knew reggae music....no jamaican community either) Bob Marley & Wailers was the ONLY reggae available.
After that the usual Island -Virgin artists (very difficult to find in shops)...after being hooked on reggae, trips to London (paradise!)where you didn't have to put any effort whatsoever cause the music, the records and the people were everywhere.

Slowly, via punk. The Clash, the Specials. My first reggae was Desmond Dekker, Bob Marley, Skatalites.

Dennis Brown - Whip Them Jah Jah, haven't been able to listen to anything but reggae since I heard this song. Started with strictly roots, quickly moved to dub, and pretty recently been listening to 80's dancehall.

I was looking for a Western passage to India. And even though people were already listening to it, I claimed Reggae as my own discovery.



DB

I was like eight. Now I'm 26. Dad was a big vynil collector, mostly of good music let's say... he had BM Legend, Black Uhuru Island Reggae Greats and some UB40 stuff... mom and dad used to dance in the living room while I played imaginary drums hitting our armchair... they danced to different types of music, but my mom always asked daddy to play UB40's rat in the kitchen... so we started to go deeper into Reggae, which kinda brought the family together... now I know the UB's are not the best band in the world, but I still dig their music, which I believe it is highly original, I'm sure most Roots Fans will boo-me, but I don't care... after that I went through a roots phase... but currently I listen and enjoy to every age of JA music, from Mento Boogie to Ska, Roots, RubaDub, Dancehall, Ragga (the only style I really dislike its the current Gangsta-Crunk shit going on of Mavado and the like)

Jah Bless
Arca Negra Sound System
Selector Benyo
CHILE

I grew up in a house that played Harry Belefonte records all day long, I memorized every lyric to every song. First 45 was "Israelites", although it was simply known as "pop" at the time. The next year a trip to London was an eye-opener, with semi-naked ladies adorning "Tighten Up" LPs. That made me somehwat curious. I asked the shopkeep "what is reggae?", and he replied, "oh, it's like the Israelites". A few years later, "Catch A Fire" was released, although I can't say I liked it that much..."Burning" sounded much better to my ears. Knowing that, a friend in High School introduced me to Jamaican records....I'll never forget seeing all of these labels at his house that I had never heard of before, and quickly realized that there was a whole musical world that I knew nothing about. So I got curious, and starting visiting many of the West Indian shops in Toronto to buy records, almost all of which have closed now. I met a girl who had similar interests (we were both fans of Augustus Pablo), and we wrote a fan letter to him, not expecting a reply. A few months later he replied, and we started distributing records for him in town, and started a Rockers International newsletter. Pablo said we should broaden the publication, so we did, and put out a magazine in the 80's (in total there were 7 or 8 issues...this was before desktop publishing was available, and to get information you literally had to travel to Jamaica). Of course this isn't the case now with the internet.