Reggae is a music genre developed in Jamaica in the late 1960s. The term is sometimes used in a broad sense to refer to most types of Jamaican music, including ska, rocksteady and dub. The term is more specifically used to indicate a particular style that originated after the development of rocksteady. In this sense, reggae includes two subgenres: roots reggae (the original reggae) and dancehall reggae, which originated in the late 1970s.

Reggae is founded upon a rhythm style characterized by regular chops on the off-beat, known as the skank. The tempo is generally slower than that found in reggae's precursors, ska and rocksteady.

Reggae is often associated with the Rastafari movement, which influenced many prominent reggae musicians in the 1970s and 1980s. Reggae song lyrics deal with many subjects, including faith, love, sexuality and broad social issues.

Reggae's origins are in traditional African and Caribbean music; American rhythm and blues; and Jamaican ska and rocksteady. In 1963, Coxsone Dodd of Studio One asked Jackie Mittoo (pianist of The Skatalites) to run recording sessions and compose original music. Mittoo, with the help of drummer Lloyd Knibbs, turned the traditional ska beat into reggae by slowing down the tempo. Bob Marley, who played an important role in popularizing reggae worldwide, recorded ska, rocksteady, and nyabinghi-drumming records early in his career. By the late 1960s, reggae was getting radio play in the United Kingdom on John Peel's radio show.

ROOTS REGGAE

Roots reggae is the name given to explicitly Rastafarian reggae: a spiritual type of music whose lyrics are predominantly in praise of Jah (God). Recurrent lyrical themes include poverty and resistance to government oppression. The creative pinnacle of roots reggae may have been in the late 1970s, with singers such as Burning Spear, Gregory Isaacs, Freddie McGregor, Johnny Clarke, Horace Andy, Barrington Levy and Linval Thompson teaming up with studio producers including Lee 'Scratch' Perry, King Tubby, and Coxsone Dodd.
Reggae's origins are in traditional African and Caribbean music; American rhythm and blues; and in Jamaican ska and rocksteady. In 1963, Coxsone Dodd of Studio One asked Jackie Mittoo (pianist of The Skatalites) to run recording sessions and compose original music. Mittoo, with the help of drummer Lloyd Knibbs, turned the traditional ska beat into reggae by slowing down the tempo. Bob Marley, who played an important role in popularizing reggae worldwide, recorded ska, rocksteady, and nyabinghi-drumming records early in his career. The word reggae may have been first used by the ska band Toots and the Maytals, in the title of their 1968 hit Do the Reggay. The Oxford English Dictionary says the origin of the word is unknown, but may be derived from the Jamaican-English word rege-rege, meaning quarrel. Other theories are that 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.

By the late 1960s, reggae was getting radio play in the United Kingdom on John Peel's radio show, and Peel continued to play much reggae during his career. Reggae has always had a fairly large following in the United Kingdom, especially during the 1970s and 1980s. In the second half of the 1970s, the UK punk rock scene was starting to take off, and some punk DJs played reggae records during their DJ sets. Certain punk bands, such as The Clash, The Slits and The Ruts incorporated reggae influences into their music. Reggae includes several subgenres, such as roots reggae, dub, lovers rock and dancehall.