[Author’s Name]
[Institution’s Name]
Essay on Reggae Music
Reggae is a style of contemporary Caribbean music originating in Jamaica, one of the most influential styles of world popular music. The term reggae is also applied today to reggae’s Jamaican antecedent styles, including mento, ska, and rock steady. The origins of reggae can be traced to the 1940s and the emergence of mento, a hybrid that combines African folk-music traditions with calypso, the carnival music of Trinidad. Mento features rhythmic, syncopated guitar strumming and lively, topical lyrics.
In the 1950s Jamaican musicians began to experiment with drum and bass patterns, inspired by the rhythm-and-blues music (R&B) being broadcast by radio stations in the United States. By the 1960s mento had evolved into an upbeat style of dance music known as ska. Influenced by American jazz, ska was predominantly instrumental and was epitomized by the music of the Skatalites, a group led by trombonist Don Drummond. By 1966 ska had mellowed into a style called rock steady. In contrast to ska, the sparse rhythms of rock steady allowed the vocalist to play a greater role and encouraged the formation of a number of Jamaican pop vocal groups.
Soon rock steady was combined with traditional mento rhythms to produce reggae music. “Do the Reggay” (1968) by the Maytals was one of the earliest appearances of the term in a song. Reggae inverted traditional rock music by allowing the guitar to take much of the rhythmic emphasis, often playing chords on the offbeat while the bass played melodic patterns. Singer Jimmy Cliff became the first reggae performer to achieve international popularity, largely because of his lead role in the motion picture The Harder They Come (1973), for which he also performed the title song....
