Very Short History of Jamaican Music

Jamaican music has been mixed with many various other types of music from other cultures. There are many different types of music in Jamaica. Some of these would be ska, mento, rocksteady, reggae, and dancehall. Jamaican music has been a mixture of American, African, and other Caribbean country’s combinations. The most popular music of Jamaica, though it would be reggae since it has gained tremendous international fame due to the famous Bob Marley.

In the early 1970s, the rocksteady music evolved into reggae, which is a combination of the American soul music and some Jamaican mento. This new type of music, reggae, soon became very popular across the world due to the many international artists that performed it. Some of these artists were Bob Marley, Peter Tosh, and Bunny Wailer. Bob Marley had many songs that focus on love, peace, and redemption, which captured the hearts of many, which is one of the reasons his music, along with reggae, on the whole, became so popular. His music was also said to be a truce between the two major political parties, the JLP, and the PNP. Reggae music then began to be tied to the Rastafarian religion. Other artists such as Gregory Isaacs helped to put reggae on the map too.

During the period of the 1980’s there came to be a section of reggae known as dancehall. This type of music was mostly speech with the musical accompaniment of basic drum beats which were usually created by electric drums. Many variations of dancehall then came about in the early 1990’s which began to grow very popular at that time. Since this new music evolved many new artist such as Bennie man, Bounty Killer, Buju Banton, Shabba Ranks and Capleton converted to the new style. They then began to capture the international markets which would mainly be North America.