Roots Archives Forum

Reggae music comes from Jamaica.

We all know this.

But why?

What combination of events, personalities, environments and cultures brought it all about on that little island?

After all, it could all have started in Tasmania, couldn't it?

I know some of you know the story, or some know parts of it. But others here know little about how it all happened and what role people played in it all.

I'm sure many of us have something to offer on how all this came to be in the way it did.

Cue: The History of Reggae Music - Part 400!

I've got no idea.

I suppose the whole melting pot of slavery, mix of cultures, traditional african music, traditional european music, soul music, blues etc.

But that could be said of many other Carribean Islands

The other week I went to a 50th Wedding anniversary, basically it was a square dance with traditional english/irish folk music, and along side the music was a bloke sort of giving instructions over the music. In a funny sort of way it sounded like a DJ on a sound system in the early days of reggae. Its not beyond the realms of possibility the same type of thing could have taken place in 18th Century Jamaica with indentured workers/transported criminals from Europe and slaves.

I'm not saying that something like that definitely happened, but its possible that there may have been some influence there.

It was near the USA. Same as the Jazz musicians, who had got their instruments after the American Cival War when the marching bands had left all their saxaphones and instruments and the people started playing the instruments left over and played them in a new style called Jazz and as Jazz and old style R&B turned into other forms of music during the 1950 and 60`s Jamaica would hear the music on their radios and saw what the afro-Americans were doing with the music. Of course there has been nyah bingi drumming and singing up in the hills in rastaman camp for many a century. So once they got hold of brass instruments and pianos there was a level playing field for Jamaica to produce such a great number of artists and records for such a small island.

peace

Jah Make Ah

This is a BIG one!
You KNOW I'll be delighted to jump into this...later

blues was influence , slãvery was influence ,politics was influence , heartbeat of africa was influence , money was influence ,geographical locãtion was influence , top 40 usa was influence , immigration was influence , instruments were influence , and the creation and evolution of man's ability to think and sing was .

The fact that they spoke english is what made them turn to america first for musical inspiration, more so than for instance Cuba or Haiti. But there was already the tradition of African revival music and rasta music for a long time in Jamaica. So they wouldn't play straight RnB, but a form of it that was embedded in their musical tradition and adapted to the specific climate and way of life of Jamaica. In the 70s the rasta ideology became fashionable, so the music got heavily influenced by religious chanting and a more "african" trance-y approach to the music.
Also, the specific sound system culture gave people an appetite for bass and dj's. Add to that the lucky experiments of people like King Tubby.

Also, reggae only sold marginally to a foreign audience, so there was no reason to sugar it and adapt it to wider audiences (as is the case with soul music, for example) so it got a chance to really develop its own idiom.

Theres a book called "Jah Music" by Sebastian Clarke, it covers this topic in quite good detail.

It covers how music / song evolved in Jamaican from the days of slavery right through to the turn of the 80`s (when the book was written).

Some parts are a bit hard going but the overall read is pretty damn good.

OK, here's the short version:

WHY NOT KINGSTON?

philosophy 101 at play there...

Will have to check that 'Jah Music' book see if it can be found - thanks Rootsman

Now back to real life for a few minutes...