Reggae 101

Part ambassador, part legend, part saint, Bob Marley rolled Elvis Presley, James Dean, and John Lennon into one monster reggae spliff — his "One Love/People Get Ready" from 1977’s Exodus, with its interpolation of the classic Impressions song, still rallies the faithful of the Rasta Nation. With its stutter-step rhythm and syncopated bass, Desmond Dekker's "Israelites" (1968) had sailed into American-charted waters even while Marley was still island-bound. And the silken-voiced Jimmy Cliff put reggae on the big screen as anti-hero Ivanhoe Martin in The Harder They Come, from which we feature the title track.

In Next Steps, we look at the political side of the island's favorite music.

Hidden in the grooves of reggae's seemingly laid-back sound was a bubbling cauldron of angry politics and Judgment Day visions. Max Romeo morphed from playboy to politico with "War Ina Babylon," a thinly veiled call to arms against the government, made all the more urgent by studio wizard Lee "Scratch" Perry's pulse-pounding production. Third World's "1865 (96º in the Shade)" combines yesterday's history lesson with tomorrow's culture clash, moving with the deceptive sluggishness of a cobra at mid-day, but with deadly venom in its fangs. Not every reggae hit creaked under the weight of a heavy political or social message, though: check out Musical Youth's "Pass the Dutchie."

In Deep Cuts, the mighty power of dub casts its bass-boosted spell.

You can't really know reggae without delving into the crazy-quilt world of Lee "Scratch" Perry, the mad genius who produced Marley's early material before cutting some of the darkest, densest, swampiest, bass-speaker-destroying dub sides in reggae history, including "Roast Fish and Cornbread (Extended 7” Mix)." Perry is joined in the upper echelons of the dub fraternity by sometime collaborator King Tubby (born Osbourne Ruddock), one of the godfathers of remix culture in its broadest definition — here we find him in cahoots with melodica legend Augustus Pablo, laying down the mellow wobble of “King Tubby Meets Rockers Uptown.”

The Caribbean trade winds that filled the sails of pirates and slavers also relayed music from New Orleans to Jamaica. When the Crescent City's funky R&B hit the tropical island shores, the Creole-Calypso brew mutated into a sultry, trippy, hip-grinding music that matched the climate like a cool bottle of Red Stripe. Poor kids from ghettos so destitute they made Watts look like Monaco "toasted" on lavish mobile sound systems, grew their hair into massive dreadlocks, and many of them dedicated themselves to a life of peace. What started as a trickle with Desmond Dekker's herky-jerk rhythms grew to deluge proportions as The Harder They Come brought reggae style to the big screen and Bob Marley — and dozens of fans, including Eric Clapton — put it on the radio.