Reggae

[insane guy]

Greetings!

I have a feeling that the majority of elma players listen either to electronic music (HC, DnB, Techno and stuff), any kinds of Metal or Britney Spears.

Just wanted to ask if there are any "die hard" reggae fans in elma scene.

I do listen to hiphop, noisecore, dnb, classic, children songs, you name it, but like 95% Reggae.

Please confess if you are Irie Daily!!!


JAH RASTA FAR I!!!

[Igge]

I like reggae, but i like ska more

[berhabdul]

I listen to reggae, but only polish.

[Sla]

yee! this topic is a surprise here...
reggae to the max!
(avatar changed some days ago, not now )

[teajay]

most reggae is kinda boring for me, but I have this dub mix (reggae and dub, some tracks contain vocals,some only a little) of dark side of the moon by easy star all star band and it ROCKS. Anyone knows that one?

Please insane guy, tell me that you do!

[insane guy]

sorry tj, never heard of that at all. maybe you wanna share?

[Harald Hasch]

yesh! I DO TEH REGGAEY

you speak from my heart, i'm huge reggaenator, ever living ever faithful

wi a go a som cansehrt, JAHHH....ras tafari

[Mawane]

i dunno what is reggae, could you gimme many cool samples from youtube?

[error]

I listen to reggae, russian reggae. Like: 5'nizza

[Igge]

i dunno what is reggae, could you gimme many cool samples from youtube?

Haha omg.

[insane guy]

btw. I am going to the show of Lee "Scratch" Perry, this evening in Hamburg, Germany.
Anyone else?

[John]

Reggae is max when in the right mood, like in sunny summerdays. :)

[teajay]

Haha, mawane, from which cave did you just came crawling out?

insane guy, I will upload the album for you and skicka in private ofcourse.

[The_BoneLESS]

Reggae is listenable in certain occasions but normaly,
i wouln't listen to it.

Kinda gets on my nerve after some hours, sounds repetitive (or maybe am i listening to some bad reggea?!)

[Harald Hasch]

btw. I am going to the show of Lee "Scratch" Perry, this evening in Hamburg, Germany.
Anyone else?

arschloch ;P

btw he lives laik 10 min away from mi hometown. i heard rumours he went nuts. nat believe teh, is jast hau hee iz. max legend...

[kuchitsu]

How should I start exploring reggae? Obviously I've heard some Bob Marley but what else is good for a beginner?

[insane guy]

How should I start exploring reggae? Obviously I've heard some Bob Marley but what else is good for a beginner?

Hmm that's a tough question because although it may seem that "all Reggae sounds the same" there is quite a broad spectrum. I'll try to give a brief overview (from a mostly personal viewpoint, you can ofcourse always google "Essential Reggae Albums" or so)

Warning: Some of it is not very political correct from today's or any perspective


60s Ska and Rocksteady:
Prince Buster This is what got me into Reggae, very "funny" and cool when you are 17.
some more examples:
you probably know this one
Paragons

On a sidenote: Rocksteady music was pretty much exclusively produced from 1967-1969 but the music industry in Jamaica was so productive that there is a seemingly endless supply of artists and songs from that time. Also combining Ska and Rocksteady into one category does not do either justice, but it's not where my main musical interest lies so you'll have to live with that.

70s Roots Reggae:
This is one of my mainstays up until today, Once again Jamaica was flooded by a ton of artists that produced 1000s of records, some are still being discovered today.
Culture
Congos
Don Carlos probably my favourite reggae singer of all time, this is actually from the early 80s but who cares
Burning Spears
Jacob Miller
The Gladiators

Dub:
Lets take a brief excursion to DUB. Dub, in my own words, is the Reggae instrumental (it's called rhythm aka "Riddim") without or with only fragments of the vocals and added effects. So on a typical 7" vinyl record you would have the vocal track on side A and the dub track on side b. Here is an example: No Jestering
Here is an excellent dub album from the 70s : Creation Rebel
Dub plays a crucial role in basically all styles of Reggae and we will get back to it when we get to the modern age.

80s Dancehall/Digital/RubaDub:
Barrington Levy
Nitty Gritty
Red Dragon
Little Lenny

When the digital era hit Jamaica, it completely changed the music industry and classical "Roots Reggae" (as presented above) almost went extinct.
Here is a very famous song that was recorded using a legendary Casio keyboard:
Sleng Teng
I read somewhere that when this "Riddim" was played at a party for the first time, the crowd went so mad that the Selector had to play it for 45 minutes straight. From what I know Reggae music didn't have a huge representation in local media in Jamaica. Radio and TV mostly played US Pop music so you had to get your song on vinyl and have it played at local parties. This is how the music was spread. Anyway I am digressing into topics I know not very much about so let's get going.

Copyright:
One more excursion to Copyright. Copyright laws in Jamaica were somewhat non existent which causes confusion and often frustration for the artists up until today. This would lead to the same song getting sung by many artistst and the same riddim being used as the instrumental for hundreds of songs. A good example is the above mentioned Sleng Teng Riddim. It has 367 entries on Riddimguide.com meaning that 367 songs exist that use that instrumental or variants of it. But there are probably a lot more. Here are some of the songs in a handy mix.

90s Dancehall & Steppers
Apart from a few classic party bangers I don't know much about this time. Fun when drunk at a party in early 2000s. Mabye still fun today, who knows.

Meanwhile in the UK a lot of Dub/Steppers was being produced. This is where I tread on very thin ice: Steppers has been around since the 70s, meaning a Roots song with a very pumping, fast played Riddim track. Over the years it has evolved into a unique style of Reggae, loved by some, hated by others. Some tunes could be seen as borderline Techno. This meme sums it up quite perfectly. As you might expect I am not a big fan of steppers music although there are a few great songs:

Stepper Style
More examples:
Panda Dub
Alpha Steppa

00s-today Dancehall, Roots Revival and a bit of everything
Early 2000s still had Dancehall going strong with guys like
Elephant Man
Buju Banton

There seemed to be a popular phase for Reggae sometime during the 00s, e.g. you most likely know this one:
Damian Marley (another great example of using old material and making a hit out of it, the original is from Ini Kamoze in 1983)

While in Jamaica (for me) the music was going downhill with autotune madness and copying other shit like trap etc., other parts of the world seemed to get better off during the 10s. A huge 80s/digital revival swept across Europe, leaving tons of great records behind:

Solo Banton
Midnight Riders
Pupajim

WTF?
Sooo, we just opended the great Reggae box a millimeter. I left out so many important artists etc. This was probably not what you asked for, as it is very personal and somewhat more of a historical overview than a beginners guide. You might still want to google those "Reggae Essentials"

Sound:
I would like to conclude by speaking about sound. More precisely bass. The bass is the most important instrument in Reggae. In most other music styles, especially electronic music, the bass is mostly driving the beat. In Reggae the bass is in charge of creating the melody.
While a bass solo is often considered a joke or the right moment to grab another beer, you will have a Reggae crowd cheering for it to never stop. This is of course provided that there is a proper sound system. I highly recommend attending a reggae concert at a proper venue to get the full effect of the music.
If you listen with headphones you can get a well sounding bass sound in your ears, but there is nothing like feeling the bass right in your heart. Many people are taking this to the next level and building huge soundsystems with focus on clear sound with intense bass pressure. There is a handy map where you can check if there are soundsystems in your area and I highly recommend going to one of these events.

After all, I have to say that on the lyrical side most Reggae is not very interesting for me. I am not a sufferer from the ghetto, nor do I believe in Jah or any other god and many other topics seem just a bit stereotypical. But I do love the music with all my heart and probably will keep enjoying it till my days end.

[pawq]

GAA post

[kuchitsu]

Yeah, that's an epic response to an epic bump, thank you so much! I love reading posts by people who know what they're talking about. I'll report back in a few weeks to share my impressions.