UNIT 13: Revolution of Reggae BBC Documentary Notes and Research

Roots Reggae


  In 1997 roots reggae came out from a small Caribbean Ireland to an international state.

The music crossed over to a wider audience, it has had a huge influence on the artists.

Music Reggae is not just a music, it has been a way of life, expressing emotions.

The sound is powerful and is meant to show what the world is really like through the notes of it. Concasi was the drummer who invented beats that became reggae.

For many people Reggae music is a political music with succession. It is a religious movement based in Jamaican and relates with the Rastafarian religion. Rastafari is known as re-building people's identity, which many musicians converted to the religion.

Rasta was a black eyed man who kills people, due to that many children were scared of whoever had dreadlocks.

However the music was getting spread around other places but still BBC refused to play it on the radio. Due to that, people decided to build up their own small studios (like studios 17) and play Reggae songs. A lot of people believe Reggae music brings people/ families together.

As Black musicians in Britain began to use Reggae music as a way of expression it became the soundtrack in Britain.

• Early 1960s - SCA
• Late 1960s - Rock Steady
• End 1960s - Reggae
• 1970s roots - political, freedom, JA civil war

It all started as a mento music, and passed into ska music, then rock steady, lovers rock and reggae which originated from rock steady and lovers rock, finally came dancehall/bashment. Every genre has taken from the previous and is there is always a dance. It started of as a Jamaican music.

It evolved into Caribbean Mento. Mento was a song mainly played by old people, it was very acoustic.

From all of that came ska music which was very upbeat/ fast because they liked to dance and it was all about excitement.

Afterwards came Rock Steady which was also originated in Jamaican around 1966, it was a dominant style of music, as people started getting bored of Scar Music it came out as a slower beat; as it slowed down it got very closed to what we call today reggae music, it has also always been up and down.

Then came out Lovers Rock which was a very slow and romantic beat.

After that it originated Reggae Music which more properly denotes a particular music style that was strongly influenced by traditional mento as well as American Jazz and Rythm and Blues.

Finally came out the Dancehall music that wasn't too fast  or vulgar, but it added more subgenres into it; for example as nowadays there's not only pop, it is mixed with other genres such as: pop-funk, pop-rap, pop-RMB etc. They are all mixed up and all the genres have more than one, like rhythm and blues.

Jamaican foot music is very played, it describes what's happening and the everyday life. As they didn't have enough money they would have to use instruments they made. And those are the ones we can hear from the old songs.

There are little subgenres to get to reggae. when you see Jamaican posters there are big massive speakers because DJs used to put speakers in their areas which are very loud and it still stays with the Jamaican culture today. As the years passed by, it became similar to a party and people even paid for it. Dancehall music wasn't too fast  or vulgar, but it added more music.


When you listen to different genres you can hear it change and the difference. because a lot of people don't listen to what people really say in the lyrics, you have to think about what you listening to sometimes mostly in bashment music

bob Marley

Big names related to the music:

* peter tosh

* soca

* movado
* elephant man
* mrs vegas