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It emerged from just one island in the Caribbean, but reggae music has become a worldwide phenomenon — so pervasive that you might not even know it’s there.

Many musical styles don’t travel well. You don’t hear soca on British pop radio; bhangra never broke big in the United States. 

Even fairly mainstream genres of music fail to translate across the oceans: British indie remains only a cult attraction in the States, and, despite decades of publicity, it’s only in recent years that country music has made itself felt in the UK. 

But one form of music which emanated from just one island in the Caribbean became massive worldwide: reggae music. It is everywhere, whether you notice it or not.

But don’t just expect to find it in the obvious places. Reggae’s influence is felt (often literally, thanks to heavy bass) wherever rock and pop are played. 

It echoes in mainstream British pop; it loaned its culture to hip-hop. It’s considered “cool” by people with no connection to Jamaica, reggae music’s place of origin. 

It is complex enough to attract progressively-minded musicians; it is accessible enough for anyone to be able to dance to it. 

It has a certain lyrical gravitas, referring back to Biblical times. It offers a sense of roots to those who wish to demonstrate their authenticity. Kids who can just about toddle can dip their knees to it; lovers “wine” their hips to it.

A powerful sound

Reggae music works. So it’s little wonder that it crops up everywhere, from gnarled AOR to dastardly punk, from streetwise hip-hop to guitar-slinging blues. 

Wanna give your music a bit of flavour? Add a few drops of reggae. Fret not that reggae might lose its power the more it is heard, used — even abused; reggae musicians don’t worry about that. 

They know it has survived for decades in one form or another, because it remains powerful despite being infinitely diluted.

For sure, if you want real, proper, rootsy reggae, go to the source. But it’s easy to forget the other paths reggae music has taken. 

This feature celebrates the often forgotten influence reggae has had on other music, informing, energising, beautifying, and giving some sass to records that sometimes didn’t even realise they were influenced by the music of Jamaica. 

It’s a long, unlikely tale that takes in everything from hard rock to rave, jazz to modern pop. Reggae is everywhere, if you take the time to look for it.

Jamaican music goes mainstream

Jamaican music first became a craze in the mid-50s, a time before reggae existed. Harry Belafonte, who was born in New York, was initially a singer of lounge jazz and pop, but he grew increasingly attracted to folkier sounds and found fame in the mid-50s by exploring the acoustic songs his Jamaican mother and father had enjoyed. 

Marketed as a calypso singer, he sold millions of albums, though his records were some way different from the brassy, satirical, and upbeat calypso music that was then the rage in Trinidad And Tobago, calypso’s homeland. 

Belafonte’s sound was far closer to a cleaned-up form of mento, Jamaica’s pre-ska music. Records such as “Matilda” and “The Banana Boat Song” were non-threatening exotica that US audiences lapped up.

Don’t, however, think of Belafonte as anodyne: through him, “calypso” became a phenomenon to rank alongside mambo and cha-cha-cha in the US mainstream, and Belafonte, a highly committed social activist, was then in a position to draw attention to the difficult topics of civil rights and universal humanitarian causes. 

He didn’t play reggae music, but he did pay homage to his roots, and he had a conscience: vital precursors of the reggae way.

Reggae music’s influence spreads

But more than this, the music’s influence began attracting artists who were not of African-Jamaican heritage. 

Among them was Georgie Fame, whose debut album, Live At The Flamingo, included a version of Eric Morris’ “Humpty Dumpty,” and his first two singles, credited to The Blue Flames, were ska efforts issued on R&B, a UK label aimed at the Windrush Generation — those who travelled to Britain from the Caribbean on the HMT Empire Windrush in 1948. 

The Migil Five, a slightly leaden British pop group, scored a UK No.10 with a ska version of Les Paul & Mary Ford’s “Mockin’ Bird Hill,” and, in the US, Nickie Lee, a radio DJ, tried his hand with a cover of Prince Buster’s “Ten Commandments Of Man.” 

The Chinese-Jamaican ska pioneer Byron Lee, who enjoyed a four-decade career as a musician and entrepreneur, appeared in Dr. No, the first James Bond movie, which did plenty to push Jamaica’s image as cool. — discovermusic.