Originally shown in 1984 as a six-part series on Channel 4, Deep Roots Music is an extraordinary documentary on Jamaican music in what many refer to as “the golden era” of reggae. Beautifully filmed and including countless interviews and vintage footages of some of Jamaica’s most iconic musicians, producers and cultural icons, as well as […]
A documentary produced by VP records celebrating the life and career of Jamaican reggae and dancehall producer Bobby Digital (1961-2020) whose Digital B record label, established in 1987, has been at the forefront of Jamaican music transformation from organic rhythms to digitally-composed beats, and responsible for some of reggae’s biggest international hits throughout the late […]
These plenary lectures from the “Global Reggae” conference convened at the University of the West Indies, Mona, Jamaica in 2008 eloquently exemplify the breadth and depth of current scholarship on Jamaican popular music. Radiating from the Jamaican centre, these illuminating essays highlight the “glocalization” of reggae – its global dispersal and adaptation in diverse local […]
In this provocative study of dancehall culture, Cooper offers a sympathetic account of the philosophy of a wide range of dancehall DJs: Shabba Ranks, Lady Saw, Ninjaman, Capleton, among others. Cooper also demonstrates the ways in which the language of dancehall culture, often devalued as mere ‘noise,’ articulates a complex understanding of the border clashes […]
Music journalist Lloyd Bradley describes reggae’s origins and development in Jamaica, from ska to rock-steady to dub and then to reggae itself, a local music which conquered the world. There are many extraordinary stories about characters like Prince Buster, King Tubby and Bob Marley. But this is more than a book of music history: it […]
This book explores the history of reggae in modern Britain from the time it emerged as a cultural force in the 1970s. As basslines from Jamaica reverberated across the Atlantic, so they were received and transmitted by the UK’s Afro-Caribbean community. From roots to lovers’ rock, from deejays harnessing the dancehall crowd to dub poets […]
This book provides a snapshot of UK reggae sound system culture during its 1980s heyday. Scientists of Sound is a documentary portrait of one particular sound system from Birmingham. It features a unique collection of photographs and scanned artefacts from the time, including flyers, magazine covers, speaker box designs, circuit diagrams and handwritten lyrics. It […]
Just as hip-hop turned phonograph turntables into musical instruments, from the late 1960s to the early 1980s Jamaican dub turned the mixing and sound processing technologies of the recording studio into instruments of composition and real-time improvisation. In addition to chronicling dub’s development and offering a thorough analysis of the music itself, Michael Veal examines […]