50 Fun Facts About Reggae

Bob Marley's 'No Woman, No Cry' recalls a government yard in which neighbourhood?

Trench Town was also home to Vincent Ford, who ran a soup kitchen there; Marley is said to have given him the song's writing credit so the royalties could support him.

Which Jamaican group's 1968 single, spelt 'Reggay', was the first song with the genre's name in its title?

Toots and the Maytals called it 'Do the Reggay'; Toots Hibbert said he took the word from 'streggae', street slang for someone looking raggedy.

Which genre came immediately before reggae in Jamaica, slower than ska and with more romantic lyrics?

Rocksteady lasted barely two years, yet slowing ska down pushed the bass line to the front, a trait reggae kept.

What is the name for the short, scratchy offbeat guitar chop that defines reggae?

The skank descends from ska's offbeat guitar chop, which imitated the boogie-woogie piano vamp of New Orleans rhythm and blues.

Reggae is closely associated with which Afrocentric religion that emerged in Jamaica in the 1930s?

Rastafari is the movement reggae grew out of, and the music's worldwide success, led by Bob Marley, carried the faith far beyond the island.

Birmingham reggae band UB40 took its name from what?

An unemployment benefit form, the UB40, was what the band's founders had just signed on with when someone suggested it as a name.

Bob Marley claimed the word reggae came from a Spanish term meaning what?

The king's music was Marley's story; dictionaries instead trace reggae, with a 'perhaps', to rege-rege, Jamaican English for ragged clothes or a quarrel.

Ska became the soundtrack to which Jamaican milestone of 1962?

Independence from Britain arrived that year, and ska's energetic rhythms caught the optimism, becoming the music of choice for young Jamaicans.

Which Jamaican dancehall star won the 2004 reggae Grammy for Dutty Rock, the album with 'Get Busy'?

Sean Paul first represented Jamaica in the pool, making the national swimming and water polo teams at 13 before music took over.

Which American band took 'The Tide Is High', a 1967 song by Jamaica's Paragons, to number one in 1980?

Blondie's Debbie Harry found the song on a compilation tape in London and asked the Specials to back her on it; they turned her down, so her own band recorded it instead.

Which 1969 Desmond Dekker hit about hard times in Jamaica became the first reggae song to top the UK chart?

Israelites made a star of a former welder who had worked alongside the young Bob Marley, and its success opened a worldwide audience to the reggae acts who followed.

Lee 'Scratch' Perry launched his own label in 1968 with 'People Funny Boy', a satirical attack on whom?

His former boss, the producer Joe Gibbs, hit back with 'People Grudgeful', an answer record built on the very same rhythm.

Improvised rhythmic vocals over records by deejays such as U-Roy and Big Youth are known as what?

Toasting took U-Roy from the sound systems to the studio, and in 1970 his singles held the top three places on the Jamaican chart at once.

Which American singer's 1968 hit 'Hold Me Tight' was among the first Jamaican-made records to reach the US top ten?

Johnny Nash had lived in Jamaica and befriended the unknown Bob Marley, whose song 'Stir It Up' he took into the British charts in 1972.

Which 1968 Beatles song is cited as an early example of reggae influence in rock and pop?

Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da was Paul McCartney's take on the Jamaican sounds then filling British clubs; its market trader Desmond is said to be a nod to Desmond Dekker.

Which 1977 album did Bob Marley record in London after surviving a shooting at his home in Jamaica?

Exodus followed a wounded Marley's decision to play the concert he had promised just two days after the shooting, and then to leave Jamaica for London.

Millie Small's 1964 international smash was a ska cover of which song?

My Boy Lollipop was at first treated as a novelty record, yet her producer credited it with taking ska international: it sold in the millions and sent her touring the world.

Which label, founded in Jamaica by Chris Blackwell, partnered with Trojan on UK reggae?

Island Records moved to London in 1962 and a decade later signed the Wailers, whose Catch a Fire took reggae to a global rock audience.

Trojan Records took its name from what?

A sound-system truck carried Duke Reid's gear to dances; Reid, a former lawman, wore his pistols to recording sessions.

Which Jamaican label, founded by Clement 'Coxsone' Dodd, cut the first recordings by Bob Marley and the Wailers?

Studio One's first Wailers single, Simmer Down, told the ghetto's hot-tempered youths to cool off and became an overnight smash in Jamaica.

Which instrumental group served as Coxsone Dodd's house band in the mid-1960s, backing the early Wailers?

The Skatalites lost their trombonist and composer Don Drummond after he killed his girlfriend; he was confined to an asylum and died there.

Which 1972 film starring Jimmy Cliff introduced Jamaican music to cinema audiences abroad?

The Harder They Come had its cast speak their natural Jamaican patois, because the director wanted the island's hardship, not its tourist side, to look real.

In the lyrics of roots reggae, which ancient city's name stands for the oppressive Western world?

Babylon, where the Bible's exiles were held captive, became roots reggae's name for the West, casting people of African descent as exiles far from home.

Which 1984 greatest-hits album became the best-selling reggae album of all time?

Bob Marley's Legend came out three years after he died, and he has become far better known since his death than he ever was in his lifetime.

Which rock guitarist's 1974 cover of 'I Shot the Sheriff' brought Marley to a wider audience?

Eric Clapton's cover spread Marley's fame across America, and within a year Marley scored his own first hit outside Jamaica.

Paul Simon recorded 'Mother and Child Reunion' with Jimmy Cliff's backing group in which Jamaican city?

Kingston supplied the backing track before Simon had any words; he took the title from a chicken-and-egg dish on a Chinese restaurant menu.

Jimmy Cliff's cover of which 1972 chart-topper became a hit from the 1993 bobsled comedy Cool Runnings?

I Can See Clearly Now topped the American chart in 1972 for the singer who wrote it; Cliff's remake for the film about Jamaica's bobsled team revived his own fame.

Which British DJ played reggae alongside punk at clubs like The Roxy in the late 1970s?

Don Letts played reggae at the Roxy because punk was so new that its bands had hardly released any records, and that is how the two scenes met.

Which softer, female-led reggae subgenre grew up in South London, exemplified by Janet Kay?

Lovers rock began when London sound-system owners cut romantic ballads with young women singing; Janet Kay's 'Silly Games' took the sound to number two in Britain.

Which son of Bob Marley fronted the Melody Makers, the sibling band that won three reggae Grammys?

Ziggy Marley was 12 when he and his brother Stephen joined the musicians at their father's funeral and danced his stage steps.

Which British band gave an album the mock-French title Reggatta de Blanc, roughly 'white reggae'?

The Police leaned on reggae for their first two albums; their bleached hair came from an advert that cast them as a punk band, and they kept the look.

In November 2018 'reggae music of Jamaica' was added to which UNESCO list?

Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity is the list for living traditions rather than places; the citation praised reggae's voice on injustice, resistance, love and humanity.

At 1978's One Love Peace Concert, what did Bob Marley get Jamaica's two rival party leaders to do on stage?

Join hands is what Prime Minister Michael Manley and his rival Edward Seaga did when Marley called them up during Jamming, with Jamaica by some accounts near civil war.

Reggae's profile in Africa was boosted by Bob Marley's 1980 visit to which newly independent country?

Zimbabwe invited Marley to play at its independence celebrations in April 1980, a measure of how far his political voice had carried beyond music.

Dub pioneer Osbourne Ruddock mixed under which royal nickname?

King Tubby was an engineer rather than a musician, yet the echo-drenched remixes he made for B-sides earned him the title father of dub.

Which dub pioneer is credited with bringing the melodica to the genre?

Augustus Pablo was lent his first melodica by a friend, then built what he called his 'Far East sound' on its haunting minor-key lines.

What was the name of the backyard recording base Lee 'Scratch' Perry built in 1973?

The Black Ark produced Perry's greatest records until it burned to the ground, and he always insisted he had set the fire himself.

Toots Hibbert's soulful vocal style was most often compared with which American singer?

Otis Redding's name followed Hibbert because of his full-throated delivery: he grew up singing gospel in a church choir and was often called the Otis Redding of reggae.

Which African ruler, revered as divine by many reggae artists, was mobbed by crowds on a 1966 visit to Jamaica?

Haile Selassie's plane was swarmed on the tarmac, and he stayed aboard until a local elder climbed the steps and asked the crowd to let him pass.

What was the title of Peter Tosh's debut solo album, recorded at Treasure Isle in 1975-76?

Legalize It made Tosh reggae's loudest voice for marijuana, and he paid for it: officers beat him badly after a 1978 arrest for possession.

On what unusual vehicle did Peter Tosh like to ride onto the stage?

He could ride it forwards, backwards and hop.

Under what name was Winston Rodney, the roots singer of 'Marcus Garvey' and 'Slavery Days', known?

Burning Spear borrowed a name tied to Jomo Kenyatta, Kenya's first president, and it was Bob Marley, from the same parish, who told him where to audition.

Jimmy Cliff was one of five performers inducted into which institution in 2010?

The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame had Wyclef Jean induct him; Jean, raised in Haiti, said that seeing Jimmy Cliff succeed had been like seeing himself.

Which 1985 Wayne Smith hit, produced by King Jammy, introduced an entirely digital rhythm to dancehall?

(Under Me) Sleng Teng grew from a rock'n'roll preset on a small Casio keyboard, and once it hit, producers found they could build a smash without hiring a band.

What is the dancehall term for the instrumental backing track shared across many songs?

Riddim tracks are common property in dancehall: when one takes off, the producer lines up singer after singer to voice a rival song over the very same backing.

Reggae is played in which time signature?

4/4 is the count of most pop, but reggae flips its accents: the chords chop on beats two and four while the drum saves its heaviest hit for beat three.

Bob Marley died at 36 of which disease, first noticed as a dark spot under a toenail?

Skin cancer of this kind hides in easy-to-miss places, and Marley took the mark for a football injury; he refused to have the toe amputated and had a skin graft instead.

Which Jamaican-born dancehall star served as a US Marine in the Gulf War?

Shaggy, later the voice of It Wasn't Me, served as a Marine artilleryman in the Gulf War and was reduced in rank twice along the way.

Spanish-language reggae, a forerunner of reggaeton, was pioneered in which Central American country?

Panama had the audience ready: descendants of the Jamaicans and Barbadians who came to dig the canal kept up with the islands' records and began voicing them in Spanish.

Herbs, pioneers of Pacific reggae whose 1982 hit 'French Letter' protested nuclear testing, came from which country?

New Zealand's Herbs showed their politics from the start: the cover of their debut record was a photograph of Maori land protesters being evicted from Bastion Point.