Reggae Music In Jamaican Music

During the 20th century reggae music has played a very important role in Jamaican society. It is a music associated with Rastafarians, and a social movement which gave a voice to the country's poor black communities in a time where the Jamaican government banned politically controversial reggae songs from the airways and jailed or deported Rastafarian leaders. Reggae also served as a means to spread the religion of Rastafari, which worships Haile Salaassie I as Jah. Majority of Rastafarians believe that Selassie is the reincarnation of Jesus.

Reggae originated from mento. Mento was developed in the early 20th century by labour workers and direct descendents of the Maroon Society. As mento evolved, it was influenced by western mainstream music in the form of Rock & Roll in the 50's and became more of an uptempo rhythm and sound, creating a new gener called Ska.

On august 5th, 1962, Princess Margaret pulled down the union jack to end more than 300 years of British rule in Jamaica. From this monumental event Ska was born. Ska was a manifestation of the joyful attitude at the time of independence and later became popular in western mainstream music when Jamaicans musicians migrated to England where it exploded onto the scene.

As uptown Kingston accepted Ska with open arms, the mood downtown began to change again. Poor people started to feel like independence didn't benefit them since life was still incredibly rough in those areas. Also crime became a rampant problem, which caused rocksteady to be born. Rocksteady was slowed down and had an irie boy meets girl romantic sound.

By the the late 60's, Rastafarian movement became more popular in Jamaica and the songs lyrics became more focused on black consciousness, preached sel...

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...sive messages of chanting down babylon was introduced by these revolutionary figures in Reggae at that point of time but have been also adopted by more recent artist aswell. These newer artist style of music is more commonly referred to as dancehall. As Reggae music continues to evolve, the messgae told in the songs have stayed consistent. The conditions of the average man or woman worldwide as not vastly improved. Hence the theme of resistance has become more important, as more artist are reveling that it is necessary for the people of Jamaica to work together to achieve their goals.

Interesting on the other hand reggae is considered the new voice of Jah by more modern idealist Rastafarians. When reggae rose to fruition in 1968, it caused a wholesale embrace of Rastafarian faith and allowed for more radical political themes to make way into Jamaican music.