Reggae

What it is

Reggae is a genre of music that took shape in Jamaica in the late 1960s. The word also covers the island's popular music today and the music Jamaicans make abroad. The name's origin is debated. A Jamaican English dictionary listed 'reggae' in 1967 as a fresh spelling of 'rege', which could mean ragged clothing or a quarrel. Steve Barrow, a historian of the music, credits Clancy Eccles with reshaping the patois word 'streggae' into 'reggae'; Toots Hibbert said the phrase simply came out of his mouth while he was playing. The 1968 single 'Do the Reggay' by Toots and the Maytals put the word in a hit song. UNESCO listed 'Reggae music of Jamaica' as intangible cultural heritage in 2018.

Origins and history

Reggae grew out of earlier Jamaican sounds. Mento, a rural folk form used for dancing and as an alternative to church singing, came first. Ska followed in the late 1950s, mixing mento with American rhythm and blues, and young Jamaicans took it up after independence in 1962. By the middle of that decade ska had slowed into rocksteady, with gentler, more romantic lyrics and fewer horns. Early 1968 brought the first records counted as true reggae. Record shops and distribution networks then expanded, studios could be rented by the hour, and producers such as Bunny Lee and Harry J entered the business. Deejays including U-Roy and Big Youth improvised over records at sound systems.

Music and dance

Reggae runs slower than ska or rocksteady. The drum and bass carry the downbeat, while guitar or piano answers with clipped chords on the offbeat. The bass guitar sits at the centre of the sound, playing low and deep, with the top end pared back so that the bottom comes through. Players often trade phrases in call-and-response, and the rhythm section treats the bass as a percussion instrument, a habit kept from rocksteady. Singers may deliver a song in Jamaican Patois, Jamaican English or Iyaric. Lyrics turn to politics and social comment, to faith, to love, and to leisure. Jackie Jackson, Carlton Barrett, Lloyd Brevett and Sly Dunbar are among the players who shaped the rhythm.

What it means

From the start reggae and Rastafari fed each other. Rastafari is an Afrocentric faith that appeared in Jamaica in the 1930s and teaches pan-Africanism; drummers from that world, Count Ossie among them, played on early recordings, and the Nyabinghi rhythm, ritual drumming done as shared meditation, stands behind much reggae drumming. From the 1970s reggae's success abroad carried Rastafari ideas with it, and singers came to be seen as messengers. This did not shield them at home: promoters and club owners were often unwilling to book musicians who wore dreadlocks, which narrowed their work. Producer Derrick Harriott remembered that songs written around 1970 spoke of the poverty their makers and audiences knew.

Around the world

Reggae travelled early. In 1968 the American singer Johnny Nash took 'Hold Me Tight' into the US charts, and rock and pop picked up the beat, as on the Beatles' 'Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da'. Britain's Jamaican community drove the music there from the late 1960s, with records brought in through small importers and specialist shops before it broke through commercially. Reggae en Español began in Panama and spread to Venezuela and the rest of South America. European musicians borrowed heavily from Jamaican and Caribbean styles. In Africa the genre gained ground after Bob Marley played Zimbabwe in 1980. Dub, dancehall, ragga and jungle all grew out of it.

How Reggae is kept

Songs are made in studios, where the rhythm section drives the beat and the bass leads, with guitar, piano, horns and voices built around it. The finished records then travel through sound systems: operators load their equipment into a dance and play to a crowd. A deejay may talk, rhyme or toast over the instrumental side of a record, and audiences answer a singer's lines in call-and-response. Since the 1960s, small independent labels have issued much of the music. Wearing dreadlocks was once a barrier to studio and stage work in Jamaica, though Rastafari musicians kept recording and performing anyway.

When and where

Reggae has no fixed day or season. It dates from the late 1960s, and the first singles counted as true reggae came out in early 1968. Since then it has been played all year round, at public dances, on sound systems and from records, with new releases appearing whenever artists record. Jamaica's reggae was added to the UNESCO heritage list in 2018.

It began in Jamaica and is strongest there, particularly in Kingston, where the studios and dance halls were. Jamaican communities in Britain took it up from the late 1960s, and it has local scenes in Australia, Japan and Nigeria among other places, as well as Spanish-language forms in Panama, Venezuela and the rest of South America.

What Reggae means

For Rastafari and for many Jamaicans, the music carries a message: Africa as home, pride in black identity, and the hope of change. Rastafari drumming, including the Nyabinghi rhythm used in communal meditation, sits underneath the beat. Singers from poor Kingston districts used songs to describe hardship they and their listeners shared. As reggae found audiences abroad from the 1970s, its performers were often treated as messengers of those beliefs, even as some faced closed doors at home for wearing dreadlocks.

Questions people ask about Reggae

See also

Morris danceA rhythmic English folk dance performed in costume with bells, sticks and handkerchiefsDragon danceA long dragon puppet on poles, danced by a team at Chinese New Year and other festivalsIkebanaThe Japanese art of arranging cut branches and flowers in a vesselRakugoJapanese solo comic storytelling told from a cushion using a fan and a cloth

Good reading and sources

• Encyclopaedia BritannicaArticle
• Reggae music of JamaicaUNESCO, Heritage listing
• UN adds reggae music to list of international cultural treasuresThe Guardian, Article
• The unexpected origins of music's most well-used termsBBC, Article
• Reggae music of JamaicaUNESCO, Article
• UN adds reggae music to list of international cultural treasuresThe Guardian, Article
• The unexpected origins of music's most well-used termsBBC, Article

• Reggae on WikipediaEncyclopedia
• More photos on Wikimedia CommonsPhotos and video
• Wikidata recordOpen data

It may contain mistakes. Traditions differ from one family, village and community to the next, and the people who keep them know them best. If something is wrong, tell us. Last refreshed 2026-10-05.