Dancehall Music In Jamaica

Jamaica is an island country in the Caribbean Sea. It is about 10,990 square kilometers and is the fourth largest island country in the Caribbean. Jamaica has 2.73 million people as of 2015 living there. The island's name, Jamaica, came from the Arawak word Xaymaca, which means "land of wood and water" or "land of springs". Even though the official language is English, most Jamaicans speak an English-based dialect which is known as patois.

Jamaican music has been around for a long time. Throughout the years, the style of music moved from mento, to ska, to rocksteady, to what we now call reggae and dancehall music. Mento is an “old time” story telling in song and music. It combines African and Latin rhythm, with Anglo Folksong, and it was very

Ska is a combined musical element of Caribbean Mento and Calypso with a bit of American Jazz and Rhythm and Blues. It separates itself from other musical genres due to its walking bass line accented with rhythms on the upbeat. In the early 1960s, Ska was the dominant music genre of Jamaica and was popular with the other communities as well, including the British Community. Ska music was made for dancing. It stands out because the music is upbeat, quick and exciting. Musically, it can be characterized with a drumbeat on the 2nd and 4th beats (in 4/4 time) and with the guitar hitting the 2nd, 3rd and 4th beats. Traditional Ska bands generally featured bass, drums, guitars, keyboards, horns with sax, trombone and trumpet being most common. Music historians typically divide the history of Ska into three periods: the original Jamaican scene of the 1960s called the first wave; the English two tone Ska revival of the late 1970s called the second wave; and the third wave Ska movement, which started in the 1980s and rose to popularity in the US in the 1990s. Without a doubt, Ska set a musical standard for genres that follow it such as

When people think of Jamaican music, Bob Marley is probably the first artists that will pop into their heads. Bob Marley was born in a small town in Jamaica on February 6, 1945. Bob Marley left school at a young age to work as an apprentice at a welder’s shop. In his free time, he played music with Livingston and Joe Higgs, a local singer and Rastafari. Many consider Higgs to be Marley’s mentor and role model. Bob Marley is best known for his reggae songs which include famous hits like I Shot the Sheriff, No Woman No Cry, Exodus, Could You Be Loved, Redemption Song and One Love. After his death on May 11, 1981, a posthumous album, Legend, was compiled which is the bestselling reggae album ever