Sunday, October 29, 2006

The Origins of Reggae

I looked up the word "Reggae" on Wikipedia and there is a section which talks about the origins, or roots, of reggae. I wanted to share these bits and pieces with my brethren:

1) Reggae is founded upon a rhythm style characterized by regular chops on the back beat, known as the skank. This rhythmic style is played by a rhythm guitar and a bass drum hitting on the third beat of each measure, known as the one drop.

2) In 1963, Jackie Mittoo, pianist with the ska band The Skatalites was asked to run sessions and compose original music by record producer Coxsone Dodd at his Studio One recording studio. Mittoo, with the help of drummer Lloyd Knibbs, turned the traditional ska beat into reggae, by slowing down the rhythm.

3) It is thought that the word reggae was first used by Toots and the Maytals, in the title of their 1968 hit Do the Reggay. Other theories say the term came from the word streggae, a Jamaican slang term for prostitute, or that it originated from the term Regga, which was a Bantu-speaking tribe from Lake Tanganyika.

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

<< Home