History of Jamaican Music

It is perhaps true to say that Jamaican music was not created but born out of the struggles and experiences of the people, a natural rhythm born out of pain, poverty and repression.

Reggae’s roots first came about in the 1950’s while Jamaica was still a British Colony. During this period, indigenous music was relegated to the rural areas and reflected in folk songs and Mento produced by Mento bands. Towards the late fifties, with the growth of an industrial and manufacturing sector, there also began a rural-urban drift and Kingston became a fast growing metropolis. With ‘country coming to town’, the rural migrants found that Mento no longer appealed to them or their new lifestyles. On the other hand, the radio station played only foreign music, so the people needed their own musical form. They developed something they could control, the sound system, the forum for which was the blues dance held in the original dance halls and ‘concrete’ lawns. Rhythm and Blues was the only type of record that the urban black Jamaican could identify, but this music still had to be imported.

Then enterprising sound system operators like Duke Reid and Sir Coxsone Dodd realized that there was great potential for profit in producing their own records and playing them at their ‘Blues’ dances. An entire culture developed where R&B records were produced in locally owned studios, to be played at Sound System competitions primarily held in the inner city areas below North Street.

During the 1960’s , the Jamaican music assumed a more defined shape and peculiar identity. From the Rhythm and Blues influence, the music took on an up-tempo identity and the Ska was born. This music, Ska, produced the man who was hailed as the ‘Messiah’ of Jamaican music, the horn player, Don Drummond. Don and his famous Skatellites refined the Ska and created the beginning of a real local recording industry with hit after hit and influencing other musicians like Carlos Malcolm, Byron Lee and the then popular band ‘Tomorrow’s Children’ to rush to the recording studios, producing both albums and singles.

The trend to produce music locally was to have a positive effect not only on the people at the grass roots level, but as locally produced records received increasing play in clubs and on radio, the demand for local music increased nationally and relatedly the number of recording producers and studios.

This new activity provided many young persons from the underprivileged class with the opportunity to make a ‘name’ for themselves and escape from the hopelessness caused by the innercity communities and ghetto. Accordingly, a number of young singers appeared, rising soon to international fame. These included Bob Marley, Jimmy Cliff, Toots Hibbert and Ken Booth. With the strong influence of Rastafari on the culture and the young people, a new rhythm with a distinct African influence began to infiltrate the music.

Ska went into decline and singers pressed for a tempo more suited for their skills. This produced the ‘Rock Steady’ beat and came at a time when the sound system was facing competition from the middle class oriented disco. The success of ‘Rock Steady’ on the general recording business attracted more influences and musicians willing to experience with new rhythms. So it was that out of the Mento, Ska and Rock Steady, Reggae was born in the early 1970’s.

Music and recording became big business and local records competed effectively with foreign records for airplay. New studios appeared with the latest, state-of-the-art equipment available. People from all over came to listen to the new music and soon Jamaica had carved out a niche in the international recording industry. Then the second music ‘Messiah’, Bob Marley, was to break from the pack leading to the promotion of the music throughout the United States, Europe, Africa and Asia.