Jamaican Music

Paper Summary:

This paper defines Reggae is a heavy four-beat rhythm, which is driven in different measures, depending on the artist concerned, by two percussion instruments,drums and a corrugated stick rubbed against a plain stick called the scraper, and two string instruments, the bass guitar and the electric guitar. The author points out that reggae is influenced by the traditions of African music, and its link to life before the African diaspora, and so before slavery, runs through the music as one of its defining revolutionary elements. The paper examines Jamaican music by using a reader-response model to understand the importance of the changes in the music over the years.

Table of Contents
Introduction
The History of Jamaican Music
Reggae Reader Response
Is Reggae Still Radical?

From the Paper:

"Although it might seem from our current vantage point that there has always been a connection between reggae and Rastafarianism, this connection actually came about through the work of a number of groups such as Big Youth and Black Uhuru. They pushed the messages of both reggae and the Rastafarian movement, a pan-Africanist movement, which urged the children of the African diaspora to return to the continent of their forebears and created a divinity of the Ethiopian emperor Haile Selassie I (whose birth name was Ras Tafari). The fact that Rastafarianism promotes the use of ganja (marijuana) as a sacrament did much to endear the movement to many reggae fans."

More papers on Jamaican Music:

• Essay # 59902 : "History of Jamaican Music"
• Descriptive Essay # 117963 : "Pop Music"
• Essay # 106974 : "Reggae Music"

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