Reggae Music

History of Reggae

A brief description of the project's mission

Reggae is a musical genre developed by Jamaicans of African ancestry in the late 1960s. Reggae bands incorporate musical idioms from many different genres, including mento (a Jamaican folk genre), ska, rocksteady, calypso, and American soul music and rhythm and blues. The genre is known for its propulsive percussion, hypnotic bass lines, and steady, up-stroke rhythm guitar (called the "skank beat"), which has helped it cut through as a dance music genre. Most reggae songs feature lyrics in Jamaican English, Jamaican Patois, or Iyaric dialects.

As a signature form of Jamaican music, reggae is closely tied to the Rastafarian religion and social movement that traces its roots to 1930s Jamaica. To this day, many reggae musicians practice Rastafarianism. Reggae artists often sing of Rastafari spiritual themes or social justice, which aligns the genre with other popular music that arose in the late 1960s, such as American folk rock. Reggae’s socially-conscious lyrics have gone on to inspire other musical styles such as hip hop.