About Jamaica & the Caribbean

Music!  Music is a large part of the jamaican lifestyle. The best known side of Jamaican culture is reggae music, and the Rastafarians who are recognized all over the world for playing what is a distinctively syncopated style that arose from another jamaican sound, ska. Bob Marley, from Kingston, is doubtlessly the best known performer of this style.

Jamaica is known as the birthplace of many popular musical genres including raggamuffin, ska, reggae and dub. Jamaica's music culture is a fusion of elements from the United States of America with its R&B, rock and roll, soul, Africa and neighbouring Caribbean islands such as Trinidad with its calypso. Jamaica's music has become popular across much of the world. Reggae's popularity is especially popular through the international fame of Bob Marley. Jamaican music has also had an effect on the musical development of other countries, such as the practice of toasting, which was brought to New York City and became rapping, one of the four elements of hip hop. British styles as Lovers rock and jungle also originate in Jamaican music.

Junkanoo, (a type of folk music now more closely associated with The Bahamas), the quadrille (a European dance) and work songs were the primary forms of Jamaican music at the beginning of the 20th century. These were synthesized into mento music, which spread across the island. Mento was the first style of Jamaican music to be recorded.

Along with the meteoric rise of ska came the popularity of DJs like Sir Lord Comic, King Stitt and pioneer Count Matchuki, who began talking stylistically over the rhythms of popular songs at sound systems. In Jamaican music, the DJ is the one who talks (known elsewhere as the MC) and the selector is the person who chooses the records. The popularity of DJs as an essential component of the sound system created a need for instrumental songs, as well as instrumental versions of popular vocal songs. From this arose the dub, originally an instrumental version of a vocal song, with the vocal version on the A-side and the dub on the B-side of a single. This trend began the development of dub music as a distinct genre, popular in its own right.

Variations of dancehall continued in popularity into the mid-1990s. Some of the most violent performers of the previous decade converted to Rastafarianism or otherwise changed their lyrical contents. Artists like Buju Banton (Till Shiloh) experienced significant crossover success in foreign markets, while Beenie Man, Bounty Killer and others developed a sizable American following due to their frequent guesting on albums by gangsta rappers like Wu-Tang Clan and Jay-Z. Some ragga musicians, including Beenie Man, Shabba Ranks and Capleton, publicly converted to a new style of conscious music-making. Other trends included the minimalist digital tracks which began with Dave Kelly's "Pepper Seed" in 1995, alongside the return of love balladeers like Beres Hammond.

American punk ska bands like No Doubt, Mighty, Mighty Bosstones and Sublime became popular in the mid-1990s influenced by 1980s pioneers like Operation Ivy. American, British, and European electronic musicians used reggae-oriented beats to create further hybrid electronic music styles. Dub, world music, and electronic music continue to intertwine, influence each other, and create new sub-genres into the 2000s.