Recommended Books & Music

Many people visit Jamaica just to hear its authentic reggae. Reggae is now known around the world and is recognized in the annual Grammy Awards run by the U.S. music industry.

The roots of Jamaica's unique reggae music can be found in an early form of Jamaican music called mento. This music was brought to the island by African slaves, who played it to help forget their anguish. Mento is reminiscent of the rhythm and blues that, in the mid-20th century, swept across North America. It is usually accompanied by hip-rolling dances known as dubbing, with highly suggestive lyrics to match. Famous Jamaican mento groups reaching their prime in the 1950s included The Ticklers and Pork Chops Rhumba Box Band of Montego Bay.

In the late 1950s, Jamaican musicians combined boogie-woogie with rhythm and blues to form a short-lived but vibrant music named ska. Jamaican artists in this form included Don Drummond, Roland Alphanso, Lloyd Knibbs, Theophilus Beckford, and Cluet Johnson. The five often played together during a vital chapter in Jamaica's musical history. It was the politicization of ska by Rastafarians that led to the creation of reggae.

Calypso

No analysis of Jamaican music would be complete without the inclusion of Jamaican-born musician, actor, and political activist Harry Belafonte. Recognizable to more North American and British listeners than any other Jamaican singer in the 1950s and early 1960s, he became famous for his version of the island's unofficial anthem, "Jamaica Farewell," in which the singer leaves a little girl in Kingston Town. Although he worked in other musical forms, Belafonte is particularly known for his smooth and infectious calypsos. Note: Some purists in the crowd will point out that calypso is really a product of Trinidad, but it remains very popular in Jamaica (and Barbados).

Reggae

The heartbeat of Jamaica, reggae is the island's most distinctive musical form, as closely linked to Jamaica as soul is to Detroit, jazz to New Orleans, and blues to Chicago. The term reggae is best defined as "coming from the people." It is taken from a song written and performed in the late 1960s by Jamaica-born "Toots" Hibbert and the Maytals ("Do the Reggay").

With a beat some fans claim is narcotic, it has crossed political and racial lines and temporarily drained the hostilities of thousands of listeners, injecting a new kind of life into their pelvises, knees, fingertips, and buttocks. It has influenced the music of international stars such as the Rolling Stones, Eric Clapton, Paul Simon, the B-52s, Stevie Wonder, Elton John, and Third World, as well as lesser-known acts such as Black Uhuru, Blue Riddim Band, and many rap groups. Most notably, it propelled onto the world scene a street-smart kid from Kingston named Bob Marley. Today the recording studios of Kingston, sometimes called "the Nashville of the Third World," churn out hundreds of reggae albums every year, many snapped up by danceaholics in Los Angeles, Italy, and Japan.

Reggae's earliest roots lie in the African musical tradition of mento. Later, the rhythms and body movements of mento were combined with an improvised interpretation of the then-fashionable French quadrille to create the distinctive hip-rolling and lower-body contact known as dubbing. Lyrics became increasingly suggestive (some say salacious) and playful as the musical form gained confidence and a body of devoted adherents.

In the 1950s calypso entered Jamaica from the southern Caribbean, especially Trinidad, while rhythm and blues and rock 'n' roll were imported from the United States. Both melded with mento into a danceable mixture that drew islanders into beer and dance halls throughout Jamaica. This music led to the powerful but short-lived form called ska, made famous by the Skatalites, who peaked in the mid-1960s. When their leader and trombonist, Don Drummond, became a highly politicized convert to Rastafarianism, other musicians followed and altered their rhythms to reflect the African drumbeats known as kumina and burru. This fertile musical tradition, when fused with ripening political movements around 1968, became reggae.

One of the most recent adaptations of reggae is soca, which is more upbeat and less political. Aficionados say that reggae makes you think, but soca makes you dance. The music is fun, infectious, and spontaneous -- perfect for partying -- and is often imbued with the humor and wry attitudes of Jamaican urban dwellers. Soca's most visible artists include Byron Lee and the Dragonaires. A skillful entrepreneur and organizer, Lee is the force behind the growing annual Jamaica Carnival (first week of April), which draws more than 15,000 foreign visitors to Kingston, Ocho Rios, and Montego Bay.

Leading early reggae musicians included Anton Ellis and Delroy Wilson. Later, Bob Marley and (to a lesser degree) Jimmy Cliff propelled reggae to world prominence. Marley's band, the Wailers, included his Kingston friends Peter MacIntosh (later known as Peter Tosh), Junior Brathwaite, and Bunny Livingston (now known as Bunny Wailer). Since the death of Marley in 1981, other famous reggae musicians have included his son Ziggy Marley, Roy Parkes, Winston "Yellowman" Foster, and Roy Shirley. Among noteworthy bands are Third World and The Mighty Diamonds.

Rap

After 1965 the influx of Jamaican immigrants to North America's ghettos had a profound (and profitable) influence on popular music. Such Jamaican-born stars as Clive Campbell, combining the Jamaican gift for the spoken word with reggae rhythms and high electronic amplification, developed the roots of what eventually became known as rap. Taking on a street-smart adaptation of rhyming couplets, some of which were influenced by Jamaica's rich appreciation of word games and speech patterns, he organized street parties where the music of his groups -- Cool DJ Herc, Nigger Twins, and the Herculords -- was broadcast to thousands of listeners from van-mounted amplifiers.

Designed to electrify rather than soothe, and reflecting the restlessness of a new generation of Jamaicans bored with the sometimes mind-numbing rhythms of reggae, popular Jamaican music became less awestruck by Rastafarian dogmas, less Afro-centric, and more focused on the urban experiences of ghetto life in New York. Music became harder, simpler, more urban, and more conscious of profit-searching market trends. Dubbed dance-hall music, the sounds seemed inspired by the hard edge of the survival-related facts of life ("girls, guns, drugs, and crime") on urban streets.

One of the major exponents of the new form is Super Cat (William Maragh), who wears his hair cut short ("bald-head") in deliberate contrast to the dreadlocks sported by the disciples of Marley. The sounds are hard and spare, the lyrics as brutal and cruel as the ghetto that inspires them. Whereas Marley, during the peak of his reggae appeal, sold mainly to young whites, the new sounds appeal mostly to young black audiences who relate to the sense of raw danger evoked by dance-hall music's rhythms and lyrics. During some of Shabba Ranks's concerts, audiences in Jamaica have shown their approval by firing gunshots into the air -- known locally as a "salute of honor."

Recommended Recordings

Jamaica's culture is indicative of and certainly can be defined by its main musical export -- reggae. The undisputed king of reggae, the late Bob Marley, popularized the genre, which is musically stylized by percussive guitar riffs and lyrically peppered with political and social activism.

Legend (Best of Bob Marley and the Wailers) (Tuff Gong/Island Records, 422846210-2) chronicles the late artist's body of work. Termed a poet and a prophet, Marley brought reggae into the American conscience and mainstream. The album features a collection of hits such as "Get Up, Stand Up," "Jamming," "One Love," and perhaps his biggest hit, "Stir It Up." Legend was released in 1984 and has already outsold such megahits as The Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, and Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon.

Honorary Citizen (Columbia/Legacy, C3H 65064), a three-CD boxed set, covers the career of Marley's contemporary, Peter Tosh, a reggae legend in his own right and also termed a poet, prophet, preacher, and philosopher. Honorary Citizen features the best of Tosh's work, including some unreleased and live tracks with artists such as Marley, Bunny Wailer (of the Wailers), Mick Jagger, and Keith Richards. Tracks include "Fire Fire," "Arise Blackman," and "Legalize It."

Liberation (Shanachie Records, 43059) by Bunny Wailer is another important album of the reggae movement. When Newsweek selected the three most important musicians in the Third World, Bunny Wailer was among them. He has controlled his artistic development, despite tragedies in his career, while avoiding any compromise of his vision.

One Love (Heartbeat Records, CDH111/112) by Bunny Wailer, Bob Marley, and Peter Tosh offers the three biggest legends of reggae together on one album -- a "Three Tenors" of reggae. This compilation is the first chronological and definitive study of Bob Marley and the Wailers and Peter Tosh in their formative years. The music, the cornerstone of the ska era, includes previously unreleased alternate takes and rarely recorded Jamaican singers.

Ziggy Marley and the Melody Makers, Best of 1988-1993 (Virgin, 724384490821), spans the successful and ongoing career of one of Bob's many children. Ziggy is largely responsible for reggae's 1990s mainstream acceptance, penning such crossover hits as "One Bright Day," "Joy and Blues," and "Brothers and Sisters," which are contained in this collection. His debut album, Conscious Party, is still his best work.

Liberation -- The Island Anthology (Island Records, 314518282-2) by Black Uhuru is a boxed set of collected works from the band's 1980s Island Records catalog. The 1980s were still dominated by the Marley sound, and Black Uhuru was the band that passed the reggae torch along to Ziggy Marley.

The Lee "Scratch" Perry Arkology (Island/Jamaica, 61524 3792) is another recent boxed set release of another "old skool" reggae artist from "back in the day." Covering Perry's entire career, it contains recordings from the many different bands he formed, as well as solo works, including two never-before-released tracks.

In Concert -- Best of Jimmy Cliff (Reprise, 2256-2) is a recording with a legendary pedigree. Produced by legends Andrew Loog Oldham and Cliff, this album features Ernest Ranglin on lead guitar and Earl "Baga" Walker on bass. It includes the classic "Many Rivers to Cross" and "The Harder They Come."

Jah King Don (Mango/Island Records, 162539915-2) by Burning Spear is known for its strongly political lyrics. This record could serve as a definition for hard-core reggae. It includes "World Power" and "Land of My Birth."

Too Long in Slavery (Virgin, CDFL9011) is an album by one of Ziggy Marley's contemporaries, Culture. All songs were written and performed by J. Hill, K. Daley, and A. Walker.

The recordings by the Marleys, Tosh, and the Wailers are considered to be purist reggae, defined as such today because of reggae's splintering into many different forms, such as dance/house music and rap.

Best Sellers (Rykodisc Records, 20178) by Mikey Dread is a compilation album spanning the career of Dread, Jamaica's best-known DJ. With material ranging from 1979 to 1990, it was Dread (along with the band Maxi Priest) who ushered reggae into the new dance movement.

Many Moods of Moses (VP Records, VPCD1513-2) by Beenie Man is the latest release by an artist whose political lyrics maintain all the criteria for purist reggae, but he adds a dance beat heard only from the likes of Dread before the 1990s. Tracks from this album include "Who I Am (Zim Zamma)" and "Oysters and Conch."

Sawuri (Dom Records, CD 1067), the self-titled release by Sawuri, offers a Creole taste to the Jamaican sound. It features the Caribbean artists Marcel Komba and Georges Marie.

Militant (Ras Records, ML 81811-2), released by Andrew Bees, is a signal that the purist reggae will always remain en vogue in Jamaica. Tracks such as "Struggle and Strive," "Militant," and "Life in the Ghetto" evoke modern realizations of the same themes Marley, Tosh, and Wailer sang about in the past -- except now with the mounting frustrations of citizens from a Third World society.

Nicknamed for a Marijuana Cigarette

When the great reggae king, Bob Marley, died of cancer in 1981, his son, David Nesta Marley, born in 1968, was only 12 years old. His father had nicknamed his son "Ziggy," a term for a marijuana cigarette, which Bob smoked several times daily. The nickname stuck as Ziggy has performed around the world using that moniker.

Ziggy often talks about his father and his days of growing up on the island with the other Marleys. His fondest memories of Jamaica are going to a fishing village of Rasta people and buying the catch of the day, then roasting the fish right on the beach before going later for a swim. "I can still feel the presence of my father whenever I return to my native roots in Jamaica," Ziggy said. "He was very social and open to meet and talk with people, and a community formed around him."

The oldest son of Rita and Bob Marley, Ziggy has pursued a solo career and is the most famous of the Marley clan today. His second solo album, Love Is My Religion, was released in the summer of 2006.

Ziggy made his singing debut, along with his siblings, in 1979. The group of Marleys later came to be known as The Melody Makers. Their saddest moment was when they played at their father's funeral.

Ziggy is loved and admired by reggae-loving Jamaicans, although no one ever accused him of having the star power of his father. Ziggy also has some harsh critics, including writer Daniel Patterson.

"If Bob Marley hadn't existed, there would be no Ziggy," Patterson claimed. "He rode to fame on his father's long coattails. He isn't talented enough to make it on his own. There are dozens of reggae singers in Jamaica better than Ziggy Marley. More than his singing, I admire his political activism, especially his concern for ghetto youths."

"I loved the music of Bob Marley," said fan Sonja Nesta. "But he's not around anymore. So today I listen to Ziggy. There is something of his father in his sound, even in his looks. I love his music even if I don't love it as much as his father's. It's hard for an offspring of a famous music-maker to follow in his footsteps, especially if that father was a legend. In America, Judy Garland's daughter, Liza Minnelli, never had the magic her mother did. But she went on and had a successful career in spite of that. In Jamaica, Ziggy is doing the same. Of course, he's no Bob Marley. No one can replace 'The King,' just as in the States a thousand impersonators never really replaced Elvis."