REGGAE & REGGAE ROCK

Reggae is a popular music style that originated in Jamaica in the late 1960s. It quickly emerged as the country’s dominant music, after Jamaica’s independence from the UK. By the 1970s it became an international style particularly popular in Britain, in the United States and in Africa. It was widely perceived as a voice of the oppressed. The lyrics contain political protest and deal with social and economical injustice. Reggae took its origins from Ska. It is based on a heavy four-beat rhythm driven by the drums. The typical musical instruments are: the bass guitar, the electric guitar, and the scraper, a corrugated wooden stick that is rubbed by a plain stick. The king of reggae is Bob Marley.

Reggae music influenced lots of American and British artists, who included some characteristics of reggae into their songs, mixing them with rock elements. This fusion produced a very original genre of rock: reggae rock. This genre of rock took its origins from reggae, reggae fusion, rock and rocksteady. The principal instruments of reggae rock are the bass, the drums, the guitar, brass instruments, the keyboard.

The term "reggae rock" has been used to classify the lyrics of bands such as The Police, Sublime, Sublime with Rome, Pepper, Slightly Stoopid, The Expendables, Iration, Dirty Heads, Rebelution, 311 and heavier bands such as Fishbone and Bad Brains.