Emergence of reggae: Jamaica rocks steady and stands tall

Bob Marley

AMERICAN music such as jazz, blues and Rhythm & Blues became very popular in Caribbean islands like Jamaica. Artists such as Louis Jordan were considered heroes and they inspired Jamaican musicians to play similar styles of music.

But they didn’t play it exactly as the Americans did. Jamaican musicians slowed down R&B and played the ‘offbeat’, giving the music a jerky, swaying quality. You can hear this in Duke Reid’s music.

This became known as Ska in the late ‘50s. The style had quite jazzy horn lines and a brisk tempo and was popular with dancers.

Eventually Ska slowed down and the guitar became the instrument that emphasized the ‘offbeat’. This new style was known as rock steady in the ‘60s and some of its best exponents were vocal groups such as The Heptones or The Paragons. They often sang beautiful love songs.

In the ‘70s the music changed again as a new generation of artists such as Dennis Brown, Johnnie Clarke and Bob Marley & The Wailers brought a political awareness to the music.

In 1968 the Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie visited Jamaica and this sparked a huge interest in Rastafari, a religion that placed Africa at the heart of its belief system. Rastafarians in Jamaica believed Africa was their real home.

One of the great reggae singers Winston Rodney or Burning Spear wrote a very important song called Slavery Days that acknowledges the history of black people in the Caribbean who are descended from African slaves.

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