What Jamaican Music Predated Reggae?

Jamaican music has a long and rich history, and reggae is just one of its many genres. But what came before reggae? In this blog post, we explore the origins of Jamaican music and the genres that predated reggae.

Mento

Mento is a style of Jamaican music that predates and has greatly influenced reggae. It is a fusion of African and European folk music. The African influences come from the slaves who were brought over to Jamaica, while the European influences come from the colonizers. Mento is often characterized by its use of percussion instruments, such as drums and triangles, and by its use of call-and-response vocals.

Origins

Mento is a style of Jamaican folk music that predates and has greatly influenced the development of reggae music. Mento typically features acoustic instruments, such as guitar, banjo, hand drums, and percussion instruments of various kinds, including triangles and washboards. The bamboo saxophone is sometimes used, as are harmonicas. Lyrics are often flowing streams of consciousness, or nonsense syllables.

Mento is often confused with calypso, a distinctly different but related style from Trinidad and Tobago. Although the two share some similarities, they are quite different in many respects. Calypso is generally sung in a much more stilted manner, often with political or satirical lyrics. Harmonies in calypso are often more complicated than those in mento, and instrumentation typically includes steel drums (an instrument unknown in Jamaica until the mid-20th century).

Characteristics

Mento is a style of Jamaican folk music that predated and influenced the development of reggae. Mento typically features acoustic instruments, such as acoustic guitar, banjo, hand drums, and the rhumba box—a small mandolin-like string instrument. The lyrical content of mento songs often deals with aspects of everyday life in Jamaica, including love and marriage, humor, and criticism.

Ska

Ska is a music genre that arose in Jamaica in the late 1950s. Ska combined elements of Caribbean mento and calypso with American jazz and rhythm and blues. It is characterized by a walking bass line accented with rhythms on the off-beat. Ska developed into rocksteady, a slower and more soulful style, in the late 1960s.

Origins

The term ska has been credited to Prince Buster, who in 1954 used it to describe his new rocksteady beat. Ska is a precursor to reggae music and is the basis for many of the newer Jamaican genres such as lovers rock, rub-a-dub and dancehall.

Ska music developed in Jamaica in the late 1950s. It is a blend of Caribbean mento and calypso with American Rhythm and Blues. The first ska recordings were made by Jamaican producers seeking to recreate the sound of American R&B. TheResulting sound was a fast, jumpy music with a strong backbeat.

Ska was very popular in Jamaica in the 1960s, with stars like Prince Buster, Desmond Dekker and Toots & The Maytals. In England, it was championed by DJs like Klooks Kleek, Pete Myers and Chris Blackwell, who later founded Island Records.

In the late 1960s, ska evolved into rocksteady, a slower style of Jamaican music with a focus on romantic lyrics. By the 1970s, rocksteady had given way to reggae, which became the dominant form of Jamaican music.

Characteristics

The forerunner of reggae, ska was also the first distinctly Jamaican pop music. A mash-up of Caribbean rhythms and American R&B, its sounds were first heard in the early 1960s on crudely made records played on portable turntables in the streets and clubs of Kingston. The energy and infectiousness of ska proved to be an immediate hit with young Jamaicans, many of whom found in it a rallying cry for independence from British colonial rule, which ended in 1962. In 1963, percussionist Lloyd Knibbs and singer Cherry Smith left The Skatalites (widely considered the greatest ska band ever) to form The Supersonics, whose “Soul Sorbet” became the first Jamaican record to be featured on Britain’s Top 40 chart.

Rocksteady

Rocksteady is a music genre that was popular in Jamaica in the late 1960s. It is a direct predecessor of reggae and was named after a type of dance. The music was slower than ska and more focused on the rhythm. It is considered to be the transitional phase between ska and reggae.

Origins

Rocksteady is a music genre that originates from Jamaica. It is a predecessor to the more well known reggae genre. Rocksteady was at its peak of popularity in the late 1960s. The name “rocksteady” comes from a style of dance that was popular at the time.

The rocksteady sound is marked by a slower tempo than that of ska, the predecessor to rocksteady. The focus is less on the instrumentals and more on the lyrics and vocals. This change in focus helped to give birth to the most well-known Jamaican musical export, reggae.

Reggae would go on to be popularized by artists such as Bob Marley and Jimmy Cliff in the 1970s. The genre has since become ingrained in popular culture worldwide, with its infectious beats and positive messages.

Characteristics

Before we can understand how rocksteady developed, we need to first look at the musical style that preceded it – ska. Ska is a fast, upbeat music that originated in Jamaica in the late 1950s. It is a blend of Caribbean mento and calypso with American jazz and R&B. The word “ska” comes from a Jamaican patois word meaning “fast” or “quick.”

The first ska recordings were made in Jamaica in the early 1960s by people like Prince Buster and the Skatalites. Ska quickly became popular among young Jamaicans, who danced to it at nightclubs called sound systems. The popularity of ska soon spread to other parts of the world, particularly Britain, where it became very popular among young people in the late 1960s and early 1970s.

In the mid-1960s, Jamaican musicians began to slow down the tempo of ska to create a new style called rocksteady. Rocksteady was named after a 1967 song by Alton Ellis called “Rock Steady.” Rocksteady is slower and smoother than ska, with a focus on the lyrics and melodies rather than on the up-tempo beats. It is often said that rocksteady is the music that Jamaicans danced to when they fell in love.

Among the most famous rocksteady songs are “derry down,” originally performed by Ken Boothe; “tears of a clown,” originally performed by Smokey Robinson & The Miracles; and “Don’t Worry Be Happy,” originally performed by Bob Marley & The Wailers

Reggae

Reggae is a music genre that originated in Jamaica in the late 1960s. The term also denotes the modern pop music of Jamaica and its diaspora. A 1968 single by Toots and the Maytals, “Do the Reggay” was the first popular song to use the word “reggae,” effectively naming the genre and introducing it to a global audience.

Origins

Reggae is a music genre that originated in Jamaica in the late 1960s. The term also denotes the modern popular music of Jamaica and its diaspora. A 1968 single by Toots and the Maytals, “Do the Reggay” was the first popular song to use the word “reggae”, effectively naming the genre and introducing it to a global audience. While sometimes used in a broader sense to refer to most types of popular Jamaican dance music, the term reggae more properly denotes a particular music style that originated following on the development of ska and rocksteady.

Characteristics

Reggae is a music genre that originated in Jamaica in the late 1960s. The term also denotes the modern popular music of Jamaica and its diaspora. A 1968 single by Toots and the Maytals, “Do the Reggay” was the first popular song to use the word “reggae”, effectively naming the genre and introducing it to a global audience. While sometimes used in a broad sense to refer to most types of popular Jamaican dance music, the term reggae more properly denotes a particular music style that evolved out of mento, ska, rocksteady, and rhythms of African origin. Stylistically, reggae incorporates some of the musical elements of rhythm and blues (R&B), jazz, mento (a celebratory folk style that developed in Jamaica before Jamaica had a recording industry), calypso (especially pedal steel guitar), and other genres. One of the most easily recognizable elements is offbeat rhythms; staccato chords played by a guitar or piano on the odd beats of 4/4 meter, often referred to asupstroke or skank. Reggae is usually performed by small bands consisting of a drummer, bass guitarist, rhythm guitarist (playing simple chords on an acoustic guitar or electric guitar), lead vocalist, and saxophonist/guitarist.