Over the last few weeks I have posted a couple of tracks that fall within a genre known as Ska. Prior to that, I have shared a few tracks that pull from a source known as Dub. Realizing that many of you may be unfamiliar with these genres, I figured that I'd drop a little history lesson for you all. If you dig the lesson, let me know and I can cook up a few others.
I should start by saying that both Ska and Dub originated in Jamaica. I am guessing that most of you only think of Reggae when you think of Jamaican music. While Reggae may be the most well known, it is far from being the only music from Jamaica and as this little lesson will show, Reggae didn't just appear out of the void.
If we crawl way back to the early 1920s, we see that Jamaica (like most of the Caribbean) was hip to Calypso (originally from Trinidad). In the 1940s and 50s, Calypso started to mix with Mento, a rural folksy style of local Jamaican music. As the 50s progressed, this hybrid came to be known as Jamaican Calypso, Dance-Band style Mento. This new Mento differed from the original in some ways, most notably the loss of the banjo (and many other home made instruments) and the addition of the electric guitar (and other manufatured instruments). Many compare this Dance-Band style to orchestra jazz (linked to American 20s-50s jazz), which links it strongly to its influence in Ska.
In the late 50s, much of the Jamaican youth spent time listening to American Rhythm & Blues. Pulling from American R&B and Dance-Band style Mento, we see the roots of Ska. The use of brass started to flood into Jamacian music. Another pull from R&B was the distinctive scratching strum that is now closely tied with most Jamacian music.
Ska was so popular that DJs were getting famous just by being the first to spin the latest 45s. This was the root of the street sound system (a tend that was carried NYC and birthed HipHop. Dig for Kool Herc to find more on this). Outside of Jamaica, Ska was finding a major fan base in the UK. This UK Ska became known as Bluebeat or 2 Tone. The Bluebeat variety of Ska first took hold with British-Jamaicans, and later became a favourite of The Mods (which evolved into skinheads) and Rude Boys. Rude Boys came from Kingston, while the Mods were typically working class white Brits, the love of the music overcame the issue of race.
Ska is known for its upbeat tempo and intensity, but the Rude Boy culture tended to listen and dance in a laid-back fashion. With this half-speed culture came a slower variety of Ska, RockSteady. RockSteady was popular both in the Uk and Jamaica, but for the sake of clarity, we are going to stick with Jamaica (but the influence of Ska, Bluebeat and RockSteady can be seen in much of the pop music of the last 35 years, from The Clash to much of the modern day mainstream dance music).
While Ska borrowed from R&B, RockSteady looked to American Soul. Much of RockSteady consisted of songs about Rude Boy culture, or it came in the form of covers of Soul hits. Most folks agree that RockSteady as a sound only lasted for about two years (1966-1968), but its formed the foundation upon which reggae was built.
During the late 60s, as RockSteady lost its root in Soul and love songs the Rastafari movement started to grow and with it came a greater inclusion of black culture, politics and protest. This was when Jimmy Cliff's movie The Harder They Come and Bob Marley pushed Jamaican music. specifically Reggae, to the world at large. I won't talk much about Reggae, as I assume most of you are at least familiar with this branch of Jamaican music.
From Reggae came Dub. Most credit just two men, "King Tubby" and Lee "Scratch" Perry, with creating Dub. This new style of music was primarily created by remixing and manipulating existing Reggae albums. Typically, these remixes removed the vocals and emphasized the rhythm (the drum and bass). To these mixes the DJ might overlay extremely reverbed and processed vocals, used typically as an additional instrument rather than carrying any true lyrical content. This was another point of birth from hipHop and began the recognition of the DJ (known in the dub circles as The Selector) as an artist. Dub is still quite common in modern music, often without the Reggae roots.
Before we jump entirely out of the past and into the present, I want to mention one other branch of Jamaican music. In the 1970s, with The Selectors remixing and spinning Dub there started a new trend, Dancehall. Dancehall started when DJs started rapping over their beats, and then evolved further as they sped up the beats and replaced instruments with drum machines. The lyrics of Dancehall tended to be much more sexually explict it and often homophobic, starting in stark contrast to Marley's notion of "One Love." Once again, we can see the ties between the music and the lyrics to modern hipHop music.
So there you have a quick and dirty history of Jamaican music. Much of this comes from questionable sources, often wikipedia, so it should be taken with a grain. From this I hope that you at least see the importance of Jamaican music on our current culture and that of popular music. Additionally, I hope that a few of you will take the time to look beyond Reggae and dig into some of the other forms of music that have wandered off the island.
I'm going to post a few tracks and a few videos (from a few Jamaican musicians and those influenced by them), but if there is enough interest, I will gladly sift through my collection to post tracks from each of the major shades of the Jamaican music history that I have outlined above. Let me know whatcha like.
audio:
Mad Professor & Jah Shaka:
Hurtin' Buckaroos:
Laurel Aitken:
Lee "Scratch" Perry & The Upsetters:
video (sorry, mostly audio here):
Lloyd Brevell: Ska is a serious thing
Kool Herc: Origin of hipHop
Lee Perry & Mad Professor: Mad Man Dubwise
Lee Perry: You Were Meant for Me
The Skatalites: Guns of Navarone
Alton Ellis: Rock Steady
Aquabats: Super Rad
The Specials: Gangsters
[/jc: guest post]
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