Reggae is a Jamaican musical genre that emerged in the late 1960s. Reggae music of the time was influenced by jazz, rhythm and blues , and by a rural form of dance music. It is derived from Ska which uses distinctive bass and drums which were popular in the 50s. When everyone hears the term Reggae they immediately think of Bob Marley and marijuana, but during this report I will discuss what makes reggae so influential in the music industry and how it relates to class, race, gender and sexuality. Reggae was used as a way for people to talk about the problems they faced in Jamaica with violence, drugs and the government. A lot of artists like that were dealing with that kind of stuff on a daily basis because of what was going on in Jamaica at the time. At this time, Jamaica was going through a power struggle between two different political parties trying to take control of the country and they often resorted to urban warfare in the streets. Both sides believed the other was controlled by outside governments, and this was during the era of the Cold War and the War on Drugs. By the end of the 1970s, 844 people had been murdered during political violence. The great thing about reggae was that the underlying meaning was always about the power of love and how people could persevere through such problems by coming together. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get an original essay Many artists in the reggae genre come from lower-class families who grew up on the same streets where all of this violence was happening. The meaning of reggae is regular, and they use it to say that Jamaicans are ordinary people who suffer. They use reggae as a way to reach people and tell them about their feelings and the state of the country they live in. During this time, reggae artists essentially became prophets to the people of the country, as they were able to use the medium to speak. about what lower class people like them faced and helped them deal with the injustices they were experiencing. Jamaica was a country founded by slave owners. In the 1830s, slavery was abolished, but it took about 100 years before Jamaicans began to gain some control over their country. Jamaica has a horrific history of lawlessness, suffering and oppression and at the center of it are the descendants of the enslaved people of Africa who are now the indigenous Jamaicans. This is where reggae originated for Jamaicans, they use it as a tool to reach the masses while still maintaining their very deep roots in the music. In 1968, Toot and the Maytals composed a song called "Do the Reggay" which was the first song to coin the term reggae and from there the name stuck and became popular around the world. When reggae first emerged, most of the lyrics were about love between men and women, but in the 70s, once reggae became more prominent around the world, artists realized they could do it. use it as a way to reach out to the world and tell everyone what was really happening in their country. . A very good example of this is the film that reggae artist Jimmy Cliff made in 1972 called "The Harder They Come", which was about a young reggae artist who moves to Kingston to try to start his music career and gets dragged into violence and drugs. problems that therewas rampant at the time and was eventually murdered by the police. This film's soundtrack, which featured much music by him and other reggae artists of the era, helped cement the genre worldwide and make it an even bigger force in the music industry. In 1973, Bob Marley mixed rock and reggae with his new album Catch a Fire, and in this album he began to introduce some of the political themes. The blend of rock and reggae is what allowed it to gain such popularity in the United States. What Marley brought to the table was an identity that the community needed. Marley had been around since the early 60's but really started to shine for the people in the 70's when he started singing about slavery and how the government kept the people down through racism and controlled all the money. This was a turning point for the lower class, where they began to view reggae artists as prophets of sorts, as they mixed their music about oppression and violence with religion. This religion was Rastafarianism and embraced a more Afrocentric view. Reggae music has always had a close link with Rasta, but it appeared more in the 70s with increasingly mainstream artists. The Rastafari movement was born from the feeling of people who, even though slavery has been abolished, still feel like slaves in their country and long to return to Africa. Bob Marley used his music at this time as a sort of social and spiritual weapon to combat what was happening to his country and to his compatriots. Many of his songs were a form of protest at this time with songs like "Concrete Jungle" where the lyrics were about "No chains around my feet/But I'm not free/I know I'm in captivity". Songs like this touched his people and Africans around the world because they all still felt the effects of slavery and discrimination. Around this time, one of the parties trying to take control of the country began to take an interest in reggae and, along with Marley, used the music to help win elections in the country with the Rastafarian religion at the forefront. In 1976, two days before Marley did it. performing at the Smile Jamaica concert to help promote the election of the person running for office who should be shot twice for their beliefs by the rival party. After this shooting, the city where the concert was to take place was in turmoil. He was only hired to perform one song during the show, but after the shooting he decided it would be better for people to show their strength through violence and ended up playing a 90-minute show while having armed men from the other party in the group. crowd. This representation will go down in history as a symbol of peace and unity. This would cement people that love would always win as long as they don't lose hope. Reggae was influential and in many ways helped create hip hop. The way reggae used dubbing, a way of using samples from other records to create different sounds to accompany the music and lyrics they used and that people in inner cities across the United States related to helped give birth to hip hop. There are still many similarities between reggae and hip hop today, because hip hop is also a music that speaks of an oppressed people. Some of the songs like “I Shot the Sheriff” that Marley composed after witnessing police oppression in Jamaica are still relevant today. The song is about a sheriff who wanted to kill the protagonist.