The UNESCO's Reggae Music

The specialised agency of United Nations known as the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (Unesco) just declared reggae music, a global treasure that must be safeguarded.

Reggae music was procreated in the womb of the Carribean Island of Jamaica in the poor neighbourhoods of its Capital Kingston in the 1960s.

At the time of its creation reggae reflected hard times and struggle but could also be joyous dance music with its distinctive off-beat drum and bass.

Reggae started with a high tempo sound called Ska which metamorphosized to Rocksteady before finally settling to become reggae.

What is not agreeable to date is on how the name reggae came to be known to describe the new found Jamaican music style.

The superstar who popularised the genre, Robert Nesta Marley otherwise simply known as Bob Marley - the King of Reggae himself - was once quoted claiming that the word reggae came from a Spanish term for "the king's music". 

The liner notes of To the King, a compilation of Christian gospel Reggae, suggest that the word reggae was derived from the Latin regi meaning "to the king".

A brief from a website called The Palms Jamaica which states that “Reggae” comes from the term “rege-rege” which means “rags” or “ragged clothes”, and this gives you your first clue into the story behind reggae music.

When it started out in Jamaica around the late 1960s, it says reggae music was considered a rag-tag, hodge-podge of other musical styles, namely Jamaican Mento and contemporary Jamaican Ska music, along with American jazz and rhythm & blues, something like what was coming out of New Orleans at the time.

Some literature states that 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.

Well we are not interested with how it got its name but what it became.

Besides Toots and the Maytals being amongst the pioneers, the Wailers —Bunny Wailer, Peter Tosh, and reggae’s biggest star, Bob Marley - who recorded hits at Dodd’s Studio One and later worked with producer Lee (“Scratch”) Perry took it out of Jamaica to the global heights.

We also have names like that of Duke Reid and Sir Coxsone Dodd who in the mid-1960s directed and produced Jamaican musicians by dramatically slowing the tempo of ska, whose energetic rhythms reflected the optimism that had heralded Jamaica’s independence from Britain in 1962.

The evolution of reggae is quite interesting because right in the 1960s dub reggae is born out of an accident leading to spurring into several innovations that brought about a whole new range of musical styles.

As the story goes, sound system operator Ruddy Redwood headed over to Duke Reid’s Treasure Isle studio to cut a mix for that evening’s sound system party. Engineer Byron Smith, by mistake, left out the vocal track, but rather than do another pass left the instrumental mistake pass and this was the birth of dub.

More so when the crowd’s response was electric and before long it became a standard procedure to have instrumental ‘dub’ versions on the b-sides of 45s. The dub gave birth to coming on the scene of artistes likeU-Roy and I-Roy etc.

And again engineers like Osbourne “King Tubby” Ruddock and Lee “Scratch” Perry began to experiment with effects such as delays, reverbs, and phasers, all the while keeping a heavy emphasis on the drums and bass.

These dubs were infused into many other popular genres, like hip-hop and rap.

What is very captivating is that fact that we still have players and artists in every corner of the world playing that authentic, roots reggae like it was when it started out in Jamaica over 50 years ago.

Back to the Dub accidental birth. Because reggae was not allowed airplay in accustomed outlets the people resorted to moving about large, thunderous stacks of speakers powered by custom-made amplifiers and car batteries means called the local sound system.

Because of competition at the time each system competed for fans and fame by getting the freshest and biggest new song that would get the crowd fired up.