REGGAE

REGGAE [Probably from JAMAICAN CREOLE rege(-rege) rags, ragged clothes, perhaps with echoes of AmE ragtime]. Music with a heavy four-beat rhythm, with accents on one and three rather than two and four as in rock music. Reggae began in Kingston, Jamaica, and has cultural, social, and political implications in the Caribbean, UK, US, and elsewhere. The lyrics propose solutions to black problems ranging from social revolution to redemptionist prophecy, and are often a vehicle for Rastafarianism, as in:Babylon system is the vampire
Sucking the children day by day.
( Bob Marley , ‘Babylon System’, 1979)
I hear the words of the Rasta man say
Babylon your throne gone down, gone down.
( Bob Marley and the Wailers , ‘Rasta Man Chint’)


Lyrics are sung in Jamaican Creole, Jamaican English, or a mixture of both, ‘often expressing rejection of established “whiteman” culture’ ( F. G. Cassidy & Robert Le Page, Dictionary of Jamaican English, 1980). See DUB, RAP, RASTA TALK.