Reggae: Kingston’s Gift to the World

Summary

Podcast Summary: Stuff You Should Know – "Reggae: Kingston’s Gift to the World"

Hosts: Josh Clark & Chuck Bryant
Date: August 6, 2026
Podcast: Stuff You Should Know (iHeartPodcasts)

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Overview

This episode is a deep dive into reggae—its history, cultural roots, and global influence. Hosts Josh and Chuck trace reggae’s evolution from its origins in Kingston, Jamaica, through its connections to Rastafarianism and international spread, to its continued impact on genres like hip hop and reggaeton. With lively anecdotes, personal favorites, and context for the music’s political backdrop, the episode covers both reggae’s unique sound and its rich, sometimes turbulent, social context.

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Key Discussion Points & Timeline

1. What is Reggae? Its Kingston Origins

[02:29] Josh Clark:

• Reggae emerged in Kingston, Jamaica, in the late 1960s, built from a mix of local and international influences.
• “No question where it actually emerged. And that was Kingston.”

[03:43] Josh Clark:

• Reggae is just over 50 years old, with 1968 often marked as its “birth year.”

2. Jamaica’s Melting Pot & Early Musical Roots

[04:15] – [06:36]

• Jamaica’s population and culture are a blend of indigenous people, descendants of enslaved Africans, and European colonizers.
• Roots in African work songs, European influences, and indigenous music.
• Mento: Jamaica's early folk music (not to be confused with Mentos candy!), precursor to reggae, similar to calypso, featuring banjo, guitar, and rumba box.
• Ska follows in the late 1950s and 60s, influenced by American R&B via newly accessible transistor radios.

[06:14] Josh Clark: “That’s when things took a really dark turn.” (on the energetic but sometimes intense world of ska music)

3. Technology’s Role: Sound Systems, Toasting, and the Birth of Hip-Hop

[07:41] – [08:56]

• Spread of electricity enabled the rise of sound systems—mobile discos with DJs who would "toast" (talk or sing energetically) over tracks.
• This toasting tradition directly influenced the emergence of rap.

[08:59] Josh Clark: “Or what they have to say, too. Like, you have something to say that should have to do with the song or something important. It shouldn’t be like, you know, shop your back to school sales at Target or something...” (on good and bad toasting)

4. From Ska to Rocksteady to Reggae

[09:55] – [11:00]

• Rocksteady: Short-lived (two-year) mid-60s genre—slower, more vocal-driven than ska. Hits included “The Tide Is High” and “Ain't No Sunshine.”
• Reggae developed out of Rocksteady, emphasizing deeper bass and percussion.

5. Unusual Influences: Nun-Run Schools and Instrumentation

[11:16] – [12:12]

• The Alpha Boys School, a nun-run music trade school, fostered many future reggae (and ska) stars—Sister Mary Ignatius Davies was key, especially for horn musicians.

6. Rastafarianism Meets Reggae

[12:12] – [14:36]

• Rastafarian beliefs existed before reggae, but Haile Selassie’s 1966 visit to Jamaica legitimized the movement and intertwined it with reggae culture.
• “Babylon” refers to systemic oppression in Jamaica and pops up in lyrics, e.g., Desmond Decker’s “Israelites” (1968), a bridge between Rocksteady and reggae.

[13:15] Josh Clark: “At the time before his visit to Jamaica... the Rastafarians... were seen as just kind of weirdos. They were on the fringe.”

7. Reggae’s Politics, Grit, and Masculinity

[23:26] – [24:52]

• Beyond spirituality and peace, many reggae songs reflect on life in rough Kingston neighborhoods, often blending messages of violence, crime, and machismo alongside themes of self-determination and freedom.

8. Defining the “Reggae” Name

[25:03] – [26:53]

• Multiple origin stories for the word “reggae”: Toots and the Maytals’ 1968 “Do the Reggay,” slang for raggedy clothing, and Little Roy’s “Reggae Soul.”
• Toots switched term from “strege” (a derogatory term for women) to “reggae.”

[25:50] Chuck Bryant: “So there’s not like a definitive like, hey, this is where the word came from. But probably maybe a mashup of those three things.”

9. Pioneers: Producers, Dub, and a Multi-Part Musical Evolution

[28:12] – [29:43]

• King Tubby and Lee “Scratch” Perry: Studio innovators who developed dub by stripping and remixing tracks, influencing later genres (electronica, hip hop).
• Use of custom equipment, much like Kraftwerk and Devo would build their own synthesizers.

[29:43] Josh Clark: “They were using... recording equipment... as early synthesizers... making it into, essentially, electronic music...”

10. The Wailers and Joe Higgs: Roots of Greatness

[30:28] – [33:36]

• Joe Higgs: Mentor and teacher to Bob Marley, Peter Tosh, and Bunny Wailer.
• The Wailers met and formed in Trenchtown; learned to sing and write from Higgs.
• Early Wailers’ records in the 60s were more R&B, with a dramatic shift to reggae in the early 70s.

11. Bob Marley: From Trenchtown to Global Icon

[34:22] – [36:24]

• Bob Marley’s complex background: white absentee father, strong influence from country-dwelling herbalist grandfather.
• Friendship-turned-family with Bunny Wailer; Peter Tosh joined as a teen.
• [36:59] Catch a Fire (1972) is the Wailers’ first “true” reggae album, followed by Marley's meteoric international success.

[37:52] Chuck Bryant: “Legend was the one that, like, everybody had. Cause those were, like, all the big, big songs.”

12. Lyrics, Rhythms, and Reggae’s Unique Sound

[20:46] – [23:26]

• Instrumentation: Bass, drums, electric guitar, percussion, sometimes synth and horns.
• Rhythm: Distinctive “skank” guitar accent on the 2 and 4 beats; moves away from horns as reggae matures.

13. Political Strife and Personal Sacrifice

[48:52] – [53:56]

• Reggae often mirrored social unrest in Jamaica (with CIA allegedly meddling).
• Bob Marley survived a 1976 assassination attempt but went on to play a hugely symbolic concert.
• Marley, Tosh, and King Tubby all faced violence—Tosh and Tubby were murdered.

[50:47] Josh Clark: “After being shot in the chest and the shoulder, he [Bob Marley] still went on and played that show.”

14. Reggae Goes Global: London, Africa, and Beyond

[54:06] – [56:41]

• Migration to the UK after WWII (Windrush generation) spreads reggae; influential on The Police, Specials, Madness, and punk bands like The Clash and PiL.
• Reggae’s message resonates globally—in Africa (Ivory Coast, Uganda, Ghana), New Zealand (Maori musicians), and even in the rise of reggaeton in Puerto Rico and Central America.

15. Reggae’s Lasting Influence: Hip Hop & Reggaeton

[57:00] – [58:20]

• DJ Kool Herc, a Kingston native, brings Jamaican sound system ethos to the Bronx—spark for hip hop.
• Dub’s instrumental focus plus “toasting” tradition help birth modern rap and reggaeton (e.g., Bad Bunny).

[57:41] Josh Clark: “Remember you talked about how dub would strip the vocals out of music... He [Kool Herc] would do that with two turntables and a microphone, as Beck said.”

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On reggae’s birthplace:
  “Reggae 100% came from Kingston, Jamaica. And it was built from all this other stuff, all these other influences, but there is no question where it actually emerged.” — Josh Clark [02:29]

• On reggae's unique sound:
  “It’s that rhythm of reggae that is kind of maybe the most distinguishing aspect of it. It’s a four beat rhythm with the emphasis on the two and the four.” — Chuck Bryant [21:40]

• On Rastafarian impact:
  “Haile Selassie came, and essentially, just by recognizing them ... he legitimized it in the eyes of Jamaica. Now all of a sudden, a bunch of people, including Rita Marley, are like, I, Rastafari.” — Josh Clark [13:43]

• On the relationship between reggae and social strife:
  “There was this romanticization of crime and that was going on in the area at the same time that reggae was emerging in the same area. So they are kind of intertwined.” — Josh Clark [24:18]

• On Bob Marley’s cross-cultural upbringing:
  “Bob Marley's father was a white man ... his mom’s father, who was a farmer and herbal healer... a lot of the kind of mystic qualities or at least interests of Bob Marley ... he definitely got from being his grandfather’s grandson.” — Chuck & Josh [34:22–35:44]

• On reggae’s global power:
  “Reggae went across Africa. There were like native born South African artists that like became reggae stars.” — Chuck Bryant [55:18]

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Quick-Reference Timeline

• [02:29]: Reggae’s roots in Kingston, Jamaica
• [04:15]: Jamaica’s cultural melange, origins of folk music
• [05:29]: Mento, calypso influences
• [06:14]: Ska, R&B on Jamaican radio
• [07:41]: Sound systems, toasting, and tech
• [09:55]: Rocksteady phase
• [12:12]: Rastafarianism and Selassie’s effect
• [13:49]: “Babylon” and Desmond Decker’s “Israelites”
• [21:40]: Instrumentation and iconic reggae rhythm
• [25:03]: The name “reggae” explained
• [28:12]: Producers, dub, King Tubby, and Lee Perry
• [30:28]: Joe Higgs and The Wailers story
• [36:59]: Catch a Fire and Bob Marley’s “reggae” breakthrough
• [48:52]: Reggae and Jamaican political violence
• [54:06]: London’s reggae scene, punk crossover
• [57:00]: Influence on hip hop (DJ Kool Herc), reggaeton

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Other Fun Moments

• Chuck does a Scottish accent game (“Space Ghettos”) [39:31]
• Stories of college dorms filled with Bob Marley’s "Legend" cassette [37:33]
• Debate on early vs. late Whalers, and disdain for 90s ska revival (“The Mighty Mighty Bosstones”) [06:44, 58:50]
• Chuck and Josh’s favorite reggae acts (“Early Wailers” and “Burning Spear”) [58:44]

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Conclusion

Josh and Chuck celebrate reggae’s lasting legacy—from its birth in Kingston, the spiritual fusion with Rastafarianism, and raw stories from Trenchtown, to its diffusion into other genres and countries. Their conversational style makes the genre’s layered, sometimes tumultuous history approachable and rich, inviting listeners to dig deeper into reggae’s rhythms and messages.

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For Further Listening/Exploration:

• Early reggae & ska: Desmond Decker’s “Israelites,” The Upsetters, Toots & The Maytals
• The Wailers’ "Simmer Down," "Catch a Fire"
• Jimmy Cliff’s "The Harder They Come" soundtrack
• Peter Tosh’s “Legalize It”
• Reggae-influenced punk: The Clash, The Specials, Public Image Ltd.
• Dub: King Tubby, Scientist

“I hope we did reggae justice.” — Chuck Bryant [60:32]

Transcript

[Chuck Bryant]

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[Josh Clark]

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[Chuck Bryant]

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[Josh Clark]

I'll wait. Just kidding.

[Chuck Bryant]

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[Josh Clark]

Hey, welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh. And there's Chuck. And Jerry's here, too. She even said yaman right before we started recording. Because this is stuff you should know. Reggae Edition.

[Chuck Bryant]

That's right. And here's a little thing you probably didn't even notice, my friend, is we always clap on the count of three when we go to record so we can sync our sound. Here's a little behind the scenes for you, everybody.

[Josh Clark]

Sure.

[Chuck Bryant]

But I clapped on the four. Did you just, you know, make it super reggae?

[Josh Clark]

That was pretty great. Yeah, because so what you were doing was skanging.

[Chuck Bryant]

That's right.

[Josh Clark]

And skang is slang for gun in Kingston. And Kingston in Jamaica is the world capital of reggae. It's where I was born. It's one of those things where you're like, well, where'd jazz Come from? Where'd blues come from? Well, it came from here. Here. No, reggae 100% came from Kingston, Jamaica. And it was built from all this other stuff, all these other influences, but there is no question where it actually emerged. And that was Kingston.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, for sure. I was playing golf yesterday with my friend Justin, who, you know, Justin from Trenchtown, Justin from London, which will also play a part. But he asked what we were recording on today, and I told him reggae. And he was like, did you know that reggae is, like, fairly new? And I said. He was like. I always thought it was like in the 40s and 50s. He was like. But true. Reggae was like the late 60s.

[Josh Clark]

You make Justin sound like a real milquetoast. I can tell everybody that is not what Justin sounds like.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, but that was, you know. That's true. And we'll get to all that and the timeline and everything. But, yeah, reggae is a. I mean, on the general timeline of music history, it's a pretty new form.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, almost. Just a little over 50ish years old.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. I mean, I'm 55. I was born in 71. So you do the math. You're the expert.

[Josh Clark]

I'm not doing the math. Yeah. I think 1968 tends to be like the year that people pretty much put their finger on when reggae was born. But let's talk about all this. Let's get to the beginning, I guess. Okay.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. Which means we got to talk about Jamaica as a place, right?

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. Because one of the things about reggae. Livia helps us with this. So hat to Livia. One of the things about Jamaica and reggae is that they're like a melange of different people and cultures who are all kind of brought together, a significant number of them against their will, and all kind of formed this society where it was all mixed together. And one of the. The things that emerged was a real appreciation of music and folk music that kind of developed. And it was very unique because Jamaica is unique. I mean, every Caribbean island is unique. Even though they have similar histories, they all just. They. They. They form different melanges in different ways.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, different melanges because you have indigenous people. And then in the case of. Well, most of them, you had people from Africa brought over in the slave trade. So in this case in Jamaica, that combined with, like, African work songs and the, you know, the European musical influence that was there at the time, they mixed together. And in the 40s and 50s, the first thing we got as sort of a predecessor to reggae was called Minto.

[Josh Clark]

Maybe that's What Justin was talking about?

[Chuck Bryant]

No, he's talking about Mentos, the fresh mint.

[Josh Clark]

Right.

[Chuck Bryant]

Capital M, E, N, T, O. Which is sort of like, if you heard it, it might sound a little bit like calypso out of Trinidad. It's got banjo and guitar. It's got something called a rumba box, which is like a percussive thing with plucked steel tines. So Minto was kind of the earliest predecessor. And then in the 50s, I guess the late 50s and early 60s, because that was the 40s and 50s American R& B on the radio, which also came from African and European influences, obviously that produced what became the more direct predecessor to Draega, which was ska.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, that's when things took a really dark turn.

[Chuck Bryant]

Oh, man. Scott's I like all this stuff. I guess we'll talk a little bit about our affinity for it, but it's not the kind of thing I listen to all the time. But I have my moments where I will put on for an entire morning I will listen to old 50s and 60s ska and super early reggae. I like the early, early stuff.

[Josh Clark]

Okay, cool. I can't really fault you for that. I think I just have a bad taste in my mouth about ska from the 90s.

[Chuck Bryant]

The mighty mighty Bosstones.

[Josh Clark]

I'm not calling anybody in particular out. I am calling all of them out, basically.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. But that early stuff is. I think you could probably appreciate a little more like the Desmond Decker stuff.

[Josh Clark]

Sure, sure. I'm sure I could too. One of the reasons that that suddenly came up in the 50s and 60s is because transistor radio started to become available. And before that, Jamaica had basically access to BBC style radio stations that weren't playing R and B. And so all of a sudden they could pick up stations from Miami and were like, oh, I like this stuff. And that was another thing too, that reggae was built on where like Jamaican people who are like, I like this. I'm going to pull this in. I like that. I'm going to pull this in. So much so that, like, the concept of sampling in the hip hop community is actually a lot of that comes from this kind of mindset that was that that reggae was born out of. It was like, I like this. So I'm going to use this.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, for sure. Like this episode definitely has some crossover with the hip hop episode. And obviously when we get to the Rastafari stuff, the Haile Selassie episode, but the technology of the radio is certainly big. And also what was big was. And you see this a lot in the Development of culture, like, different technologies coming along, and in this case, just literally electricity being spread throughout Jamaica is what led to something called toasting. And DJs, now that they had widespread electricity, could set up these mobile discos. They were called sound systems. And this was in and around Kingston. And the DJs developed this toasting. I was about to say tradition, because that makes it sound more like something you do at a wedding, but musical style, where they would speak and sing over the recorded music. And that directly led to stuff like rap.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. Do you ever listen to reggae shows on college radio or something like that?

[Chuck Bryant]

Well, yeah, that's why a lot of times I play on Sunday morning, because that's when album 88's reggae show was.

[Josh Clark]

Right. Okay. So, like. And then sometimes the DJ would just turn the music down all of a sudden and say something.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

Oh, yeah, that's toasting. Right. And it can be done well, and it can very frequently be done not well.

[Chuck Bryant]

It depends on how toasted they are.

[Josh Clark]

Sure, exactly. Or what they have to say, too. Like, you have something to say that should have to do with the song or something important. It shouldn't be like, you know, shop your back to school sales at Target or something, and then you turn the music back up real quick.

[Chuck Bryant]

Sometimes you hear these guys, and it's the best, because I think our old beloved WFMU in New Jersey, I think they had a reggae shoe, too. And sometimes you can hear these DJs are super, super stoned.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, for sure. I mean, they're probably Rastafarians, and so then that's like, part of their religion, you know, so it definitely makes sense. And even if they're not, if you're so into reggae that you host a reggae show, you probably are stone, like, a pretty decent amount of the time.

[Chuck Bryant]

It's probably a part of your lifestyle.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, they're like, time to put on my game face. Right. Smoke my weekly joint before my. My radio show.

[Chuck Bryant]

That's right.

[Josh Clark]

So some. Some people are like, okay, I like the Scott stuff, but I get really worn out dancing to it. Maybe we could slow it down a little bit. And what came out of that was Rocksteady, one word. Probably one of the best names for any music musical genre, if you ask me.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, I'm with you.

[Josh Clark]

And Rocksteady is. It's. It has a lot of the same components and instruments and everything, but like I said, it's slowed down. There's much more of a focus on vocals. So, like, there's like a, you know, Lyrics to the song.

[Chuck Bryant]

Right.

[Josh Clark]

The theme or something like that. And if you're like, I don't know if I've ever heard Rocksteady. You definitely have, because there are some hits that came out of this. Apparently it was just like a two year period that Rock City was popular. But the original Tide Is High, Ain't no Sunshine, as in Ain't no Sunshine When She's Gone. That came out of the Rocksteady era. If you've ever listened to the. The Upsetters, like the early stuff, really organ heavy, everybody sings at once, so the mic peaks and gets overloaded. Like that's Rocksteady.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, for sure. And Rocksteady is what kind of directly led to what we know as reggae. And when they started that sort of heavy thumping bass and little more percussive forward, that's when reggae was kind of born. I know. Livia points out that there are some other kind of, I guess, just maybe unusual influences. And one was the school in Kingston, the Alpha Boy School. It was run by. It was a trade school and it was a nun run affair. And they had. I keep wanting to say it's like unusual, but maybe it wasn't. But they had a really great music education program. And there was a nun there named Sister Iggy, Sister Mary Ignatius Davies, and she was just a big time music fan. She was especially big into jazz and. And ended up having a lot of like future reggae. Like, you know, not the hugest stars, although Yellowman did go through there. But some early, like ska and reggae horn players, especially because of her jazz focus, came through her school.

[Josh Clark]

Right, for sure. Yeah. I had no idea about that. Did you?

[Chuck Bryant]

No. That's super cool though.

[Josh Clark]

There's also, obviously the Rastafari influence is significant. And Rastafarianism was around before reggae. And reggae was actually around before reggae musicians became Rastafarians. And it was. If you go back and listen to our episode on Hale Selassie, it was his visit In, I think, 1966 that just opened the doors to. To Rastafarianism and reggae being like essentially hand in hand.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, for sure. And I thought we had done one on Rastafarianism, but I think I put together an article and at the time you were like, we've been doing too much religious stuff. And I just tucked it away. That never came back. And then when we covered. Yeah, yeah, this is a while ago. And then we covered Haile Selassie, it basically covered that well enough, I think.

[Josh Clark]

Oh, it did, okay. Cause we definitely got into it, for sure. But that episode was about a lot more than just that.

[Chuck Bryant]

Oh, yeah, yeah.

[Josh Clark]

But at the time before his visit to Jamaica, a state visit, this is an official visit, the Rastafarians, even in Jamaica, were seen as just kind of weirdos. They were on the fringe. They weren't taken seriously at all. They were just a strange religion. And then Haile Selassie came, and essentially, just by recognizing them, I think he awarded medals to some Rastafarian preachers there. He legitimized it in the eyes of Jamaica. Now all of a sudden, a bunch of people, including Rita Marley, are like, I, Rastafari.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

And that's it. Like, that's the moment that it spread to reggae music.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. And this is in the lead up to their eventual freedom from the colonizers and their, you know, the white supremacist sort of system that they had been living under that they called Babylon. So that's why you hear Babylon a lot in the songs. And I mentioned Desmond Decker and his probably most notable song is the Israelites. And that's what he was talking about there, right?

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, that came out in 1968. And I've seen that some people point to that, or a lot of people, I guess, point to that as the bridge between Rocksteady and reggae, that song. And it's that song you think it is like, whoa, the Israelites. Right.

[Chuck Bryant]

Oh, nice.

[Josh Clark]

And. Oh, thanks. I've been practicing for weeks at a

[Chuck Bryant]

lower key, but you're under the weather,

[Josh Clark]

so, yes, thank you for giving me that pass. But, yeah, the song, I don't think it says it necessarily explicitly, but the gist of it is this Rastafarian idea that the stolen Africans who have spread all over the world and their descendants are the true Israelites and they are trapped in Babylon, which is white supremacist run Western world. And that through self determination and deliverance by Jah, they will be able to emancipate themselves, essentially mind, body and spirit. And that's what Rastafarianism is about.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, for sure. And there was a drummer, a Rastafari drummer, name, they called him Count Ozzie. But Oswald Williams, he played on an early song in 1958. So this is like, you know, still predating reggae. It was a ska recording by the folks brothers called O Carolina. And, you know, we're going to be mentioning a lot of songs, but if you're in a place where you can, like, cue some of these up, I encourage it because they're all great. A lot of this early stuff. And that's kind of what I like about it is it sounds like it was recorded in a tin can. Like the recordings aren't the best quality, but it adds a lot of zhuzh to it, I think.

[Josh Clark]

Nice. So. Oh, one other thing about Rastafarianism, too. So I said it predated reggae. I mean, it basically came out of the 20s and 30s when Marcus Garvey predicted that emperor would be elected or, yeah, throw seated. I don't know what you would call it when you install. There's going to be an emperor that came out of Africa, and people are like, oh, Haile Selassie, that's him. And so from that moment on, Rastafarianism was born. And apparently dreads had been part of Rastafarianism as far back as the 1940s.

[Chuck Bryant]

Oh, wow.

[Josh Clark]

I had no idea.

[Chuck Bryant]

What about white guy dreads?

[Josh Clark]

Those came out of the 90s. I blame the 90s ska revival for that, too.

[Chuck Bryant]

Probably so, huh?

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

All right. That feels like a good time for a break, right?

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, I think so.

[Chuck Bryant]

All right. And we will come back with more on reggae right after this. Mom, can I have Lingokids? Dad, Lingokids, please. When did we become the Lingokids House?

[Josh Clark]

No idea. Last week it was dinosaurs.

[Chuck Bryant]

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[Josh Clark]

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[Chuck Bryant]

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[Josh Clark]

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[Chuck Bryant]

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[Josh Clark]

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[Josh Clark]

hi, I'm Jake Res, also known as Nurse Jake. As a travel nurse, I've worked in all kinds of places. Different settings, cities and climates. Every assignment brings on a new challenge, which is why I always bring my figs. These scrubs are built for whatever the job throws at you. They're breathable, flexible and comfortable in any environment. No matter where I land, I know they're going to keep me looking and feeling my best. And don't sleep on the details, the pockets, the features, the finishing touches. Everything has a purpose and it makes a real difference when you're moving non stop. The fit is clean, tailored and super polished. And they come in a huge range of colors. In other words, they feel great throughout a 12 hour shift and they always look good. See every healthcare professional on Instagram. If you work in healthcare or know someone who does, check out figs and get 15% off your first order at wearfigs.com with code FIGSRX. That's wearfigs.com code FIGSRX. So Chuck, we're back. Yeah, let's hear it. Let's. This I threw to you. Really? I was being serious, you guys. Here's another little behind the scenes thing. Chuck and I decide on the fly which one's going to bring us back from breaking.

[Sponsor/Ad Voice]

Uh huh.

[Josh Clark]

And this time I said I was going to go and so we came back and I immediately tossed to you.

[Chuck Bryant]

Oh.

[Josh Clark]

The reason why I did that, apparently it was not that great of a joke, is because I'm not super musical. Like I know reggae. Pick reggae out in a, like maybe two. Two notes. I could be like, that's a reggae song.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

But I can't mimic it. Like, and when I read about it, I don't have any idea what's going on. It actually confuses my understanding of reggae, which is dumb.

[Chuck Bryant]

Well, if you're going to count on me to mimic reggae with my mouth. Although I kind of just did with that drum intro.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

People are probably going to be disappointed. But we should talk a little bit about the instrumentation because it's like you might find in a rock band maybe minus some stuff and. Plus some stuff. Drums, sometimes steel drums, which I was trying to mimic. You got your bass, you got your electric guitar, a lot of percussion, you know, bongos and shakers and stuff like that. Bob Marley used some cool like synthy sounds and organ sounds.

[Josh Clark]

It's my life.

[Chuck Bryant]

On what?

[Josh Clark]

It's my life. Don't you forget. Isn't that the Wailers?

[Chuck Bryant]

I don't know that song.

[Josh Clark]

Yes, you do.

[Chuck Bryant]

It's my Life. Well, maybe I just don't rec.

[Josh Clark]

Maybe.

[Chuck Bryant]

Oh, okay.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, I got it. It's a very synthy song.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, Yeah. I didn't recognize the rendition. It's just because you're sick, though.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, it's because I'm under the weather.

[Chuck Bryant]

Horn section. Sometimes you might get in a reggae band. But, you know, I mentioned earlier that it's that rhythm of reggae that is kind of maybe the most distinguishing aspect of it. It's a four beat rhythm with the emphasis on the two and the four. Whereas traditional rock, it's not that. So that's why when you hear that, you know, that chunking rhythm guitar that don Chink. It don't chink. That's on the 2 and 4. And it's, you know, it's a real distinct sound. And, you know, as we'll see, you know, once this kind of transferred over to London, you had tons of groups like the Police and the Specials and Madness kind of like latching onto that sort of two in the four, you know, it's a very distinct thing, for sure.

[Josh Clark]

In the 70s, it definitely caught Great Britain by the short curlies. Curly. Yeah. And Ireland, too. We can't forget Ireland ever. We never do.

[Chuck Bryant]

No, of course not.

[Josh Clark]

Even if we don't mention Ireland, we still are including Ireland.

[Chuck Bryant]

That's right.

[Josh Clark]

But we should say it separately because they're not.

[Chuck Bryant]

Agreed.

[Josh Clark]

Great Britain.

[Chuck Bryant]

We didn't want to rile anyone up, so.

[Josh Clark]

Thank you. That's what I was trying to get to, was you explaining the rhythm. Because I. I can't. I have so little rhythm that I can't even explain it verbally. Yeah, but that's essentially what you just said. Like that's one of the hallmarks, if not the hallmark of reggae. And then you also said that sometimes they have horns. I feel like that's one of the main things that distinguishes reggae from rocksteady or ska is they really kind of moved away from horns, where horns were really, really important to rocksteady and in particular ska.

[Chuck Bryant]

Oh, yeah, for sure.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. So one of the other things about reggae too, that's good to know. That's easily overlooked if all you've ever listened to is, say, Bob Marley or maybe even Burning Spear or something like that. Yeah, they tend to focus more on like spiritual aspects, self determination. There's a lot of reggae out there that focuses on violence and crime. Because it definitely emerged in that context. If you've heard Bob Marley, you've definitely heard of Trenchtown. Trenchtown is a low income neighborhood in Kingston. I Think part of it's like shanty even. It's that low income and you lived in Kingston, there was a really good chance that one of your only options was to turn to crime to make a living. And so there was this romanticization of crime and that was going on in the area at the same time that reggae was emerging in the same area. So they are kind of intertwined. There's also like a real like male. It's really male dominated still today. It is generally a male dominated music genre. So there's. Yeah, just it. It like inevitably a certain machismo that's still. That's in the background there. It might not be always talked about. That's more dance hall. But in reggae even too, there's this idea that, you know, the man's in charge. It's just how it is.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. And you know, there's a lot of sort of, like I mentioned the influence on hip hop and a lot of sort of lines that you can draw. I think definitely more women broke through in hip hop than in reggae. But this, you know, this violent context of the gangster Persona, a lot of it taken from American movies. In both reggae and hip hop, the rude boy culture was what it was called in reggae. But you can see a lot of similarities there. The actual word reggae probably didn't come around until 1968. It was a song by the great, great Toots and the Matals, Frederick Toots Hibbert. There was a song called do the Reggae R E G G A Y. And when asked about that word, he didn't say like, hey, I invented the word. But he said that he was replacing the word strege S T R E G G A E which was like a raggedy looking woman. But he said that had a negative connotation. It was like a derogatory term. So I didn't want to use that, so I changed it over. And then there's another story where it was R E G G A Y, which was a dance trend taken from the terms for ragged clothing. And that turned into rge, RGE reggae Reggae, which was about like fighting or protesting. So there's not like a definitive like, hey, this is where the word came from. But probably maybe a mashup of those three things.

[Josh Clark]

Well, there's another entrant too, an artist named Little Roy, who. The same year that Toots and the Matals song came out in 1968, he released a song or maybe even an album called Reggae Soul. And he spelled it the way that we spell it today. Too. So it's just completely muddled. But it seemed to have come around in 1968, the year reggae broke.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. And a lot of that was thanks to, like I said, Frederick Toots Hibbert. If you want to dial up some early toots in the Matals, it's pretty good listening. They started out in 1962, obviously ska at the time. But their first big hit was in 1968 with the song 54:56. That's my number. Great tune. And they had a bunch of. They didn't take over America like Bob Marley later would, because this is the late 60s. So America was consumed with all the hippie culture and everything that was going on musically there. So it would take Bob marley in the 70s to break through in the States.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. But at the same time, too, the suburbanites in America in the mid-60s were into Caribbean stuff like exotica and things like that. Which is why we have heard songs like the Tide Is High. So it did kind of make its way over here. But no one has ever taken the world by storm, at least as far as reggae goes. Like Bob Martin, he just went. He just became an international icon in a very short time even too, as we'll see.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, for sure. So he's coming up, everybody. Wouldn't that be funny if we did a whole episode and didn't really agree just to like. That'd be an April Fool's episode.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, for sure.

[Chuck Bryant]

But we, you know, producers, just like all genres, like producers and engineers, had a lot to do with not all music, actually. Some more than others, but definitely with reggae. There was a guy named King Tubby, born Osborne Ruddock. And he was one of the guys, you know, kind of a studio wizard that was like building his own hardware to create effects. And he was the guy that first started stripping out vocals to create dub plate. And that's what the DJs would toast over.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. Which, as we'll see, sounds a lot like hip hop and rapping. Right.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. And dub music.

[Josh Clark]

Right. And so dub music. I don't know if King Tubby was the guy who is credited with actually coming up with it. There are others. Lee Scratch Perry is another originator. Dub Hopedon Lewis, who came to be known as Scientist in my. For my money, the best dub musician of all. But the. The thing that these guys had in common was they were using like, recording equipment, often cast off recording equipment that they built their own rigs out of that they were using essentially as early synthesizers. And it was a lot like how Kraftwerk And Devo, who came later, did, where it was like, I want to make the sound, but there's nothing out there that makes that sound. So I'm going to build my own thing. And that's what dub music essentially was based on. It was taking reggae and then making it into, essentially electronic music with all sorts of effects.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, man, I would love. I used to be scared of doing these music episodes because 45 to 50 minutes to encapsulate a genre is really, really hard. But since we've done it a few times, I'm not as scared of it. And I would love to check New Wave off the list at some point.

[Josh Clark]

That's a good idea. I almost said the S word. We don't even need to come up with an article for that. We can just go back and forth on it. How about that?

[Chuck Bryant]

That sounds great. I think you say ish instead of the S word is what people do.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, that's like if you're, like, on

[Chuck Bryant]

the radio or something.

[Josh Clark]

For sure ish. Because I think it's the sound that it makes when you scratch the record backwards at that moment.

[Chuck Bryant]

Is that it?

[Josh Clark]

Mm.

[Chuck Bryant]

Oh, okay.

[Josh Clark]

I'm almost positive.

[Chuck Bryant]

All right, so we're getting to Bob Marley, but if we're talking about Lee Scratch Perry, he's one of the guys in the early 60s who was working with the Wailers very early on, and he, you know, Lee Scratch Barry went on to have an incredible long career eventually in hip hop and rock and like everything else.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

But I guess we should talk about the Wailers a little bit. And if we're gonna talk about the Wailers, we gotta back up a little bit and talk about Joe Higgs.

[Josh Clark]

Did you know who Joe Higgs was?

[Chuck Bryant]

I did not. But now I'm like. I love seeing the early tendrils being, like, tendrilling.

[Josh Clark]

Sure, there might have been a Whalers at one point, but they. We probably wouldn't know of them because Joe Higgs taught them most of what they know about music.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, I think. I think I heard of him probably in the Bob Marley documentary. Now that.

[Josh Clark]

I think that makes sense, because you kind of couldn't talk about Bob Marley without talking about Joe Higgs first. He taught not just Bob Marley how to sing and how to write songs and everything you need to know about, you know, making music. Yeah. He also taught Peter Tosh and Bunny Wailer at the same time. So he essentially taught the Whalers how to. How to play music. So, yeah, they might have been around, because I know that Bunny Wailer and Bob Marley were essentially raised together from childhood as almost stepbrothers of sorts. And they met Peter Tosh as teenagers in Trenchtown. So they probably would have formed a musical act, but they would have just sucked.

[Chuck Bryant]

Well, Joe Higgs was definitely the glue early on and the mentor to them. He had a big hit as a singer in 1960 with Higgs and Wilson. It was called Manny O. And it was. Again, if you listen to some of this stuff, you definitely hear the American R and B sound coming through. Some of this stuff sounds like James Brown at first, and then that reggae beat kicks in. But it was one of the first. Manio was one of the first records ever pressed and released in Jamaica and sold 50,000 copies in. What was this, 1960. So that's a lot of records for back then. And he is. Yeah, he's the guy that, like, all these, like, teenagers basically were crowding around just like sponges to everything he knew.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, that was something really cool about him. Like, he was living in Trenchtown or at least Kingston at the time, too. And he would teach other younger musicians. Like, he took time to do that rather than just focusing on his career and getting bigger and bigger. He, like, took his. His talents and helped other people develop their own talents. Right. So hats off to Joe Higgs, for sure, just from putting the. The Whalers together. But you mentioned how the. How, like, a lot of this stuff, this early reggae in Rocksteady, so you can really hear the R and B coming through. And that's true with those. The early Whaler songs, too. If you go listen to Simmer down, which came out in 1963.

[Chuck Bryant]

Great song.

[Josh Clark]

I think they had four albums before they came out with their actual full reggae album in 1972. I can't remember which one it's called, but it's. It's. You're just like. You can hear Bob Marley's voice, but it's total R B. It's strange.

[Chuck Bryant]

They dress the part, too. Like, when you look at the old. Like, the early Whalers, they were wearing, like, the cool, like, shark skin suits and stuff, and they were, like, styled out like the. Like the OJs or something.

[Josh Clark]

Right? Exactly. Yeah. So it's a little jarring when all you know about Bob Marley is as a. Like, a reggae icon, you know?

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

But, yeah, they all met together in Trenchtown, where they all lived. And one thing I didn't realize is that Bob Marley's father was a white man. Did you know that?

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. His dad was. His name was Norval. Sinclair Marley. And he was Jamaican. He was a white Jamaican of English descent. And he was like a British army veteran, but was a plantation overseer, basically, and was in his 60s when he married Bob Marley's mother when she was 18. And so, you know, you hear that and you think, like, oh, boy, did the worst thing happen. And apparently that wasn't the case. I mean, there was a huge age difference. And I'm not saying there was a. A balance of power by any means, but everything I've read and seen, it was a consensual relationship. And that he provided financial support for a while to the family. But he was not like, around much after Bob was born. He wasn't like a real father figure.

[Josh Clark]

Okay, gotcha. Yeah. Because I hear white rural overseer, and I'm like, oh, no. Well, yeah, but one of the other things that was a huge influence in Bob's life was his grandfather, his mom's father, who was a farmer and herbal healer. And so a lot of the kind of mystic qualities or at least interests of Bob Marley that just kind of he exudes in a way, you know, he definitely got from being his grandfather's grandson.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, for sure. But as a result of that sort of displaced childhood, Barley didn't get to Trenchtown until he was a teenager. Spent a lot of time out in the country in Kingston, hanging out with his granddad, like you said. And like you mentioned earlier, he and Bunny Wailer, it's the cutest thing. They were friends from the time they were, like, 2 and 3 years old. And when Bob's dad died, his mom moved in with Bunny Wailer's dad, and they were raised like brothers.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

Super sweet.

[Josh Clark]

It is super sweet. And they met Peter Tosh in a gambling hall, I think when they were all, like, early, early teens. Right?

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

I don't know when Bob Marley met his wife Rita, but I do know they were married by the time Haile Selassie came to Visit Jamaica in 1966. And it was her influence. She went and saw Haile Selassie. I think we said in the Haile Selassie episode that Bob Marley didn't go, but Rita Marley did. And she came back like, guys, this is amazing. And she was the influence who connected Rastafarianism with reggae, at least as far as the Wailers go. And they were hugely influential in spreading that connection.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, for sure. And like you mentioned, it's Catch a fire in 72 is considered kind of their first, like, full blown reggae album. And I think you're Right. I think it was, like, their fifth record as a group. I like that stuff, too. Like, I definitely had a Bob Marley phase in college. Like, literally every person on planet Earth, for sure. But now, like, I really, really like that. Those. Those early albums more than anything like that. I. You know, my Legend cassette that I wore out, of course, in college, like everyone else had.

[Josh Clark]

Well, wait a minute. Was that. I feel like they came out with this. A box set or something like that around that time. And that's what got everybody into Bob Marley again at that age.

[Chuck Bryant]

I don't know.

[Josh Clark]

Was it legend? I thought for sure there was legend.

[Chuck Bryant]

Well, legend was the sort of greatest hits, for lack of a better word.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, for sure.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. Legend was the one that, like, everybody had. Cause those were, like, all the big, big songs.

[Josh Clark]

Right.

[Chuck Bryant]

But I really like that early stuff. And if you go listen, like, I think Talking Blues is a compilation, too. But that's the one where the songs are interspersed with Bob, like, talking in the studio and stuff. And, you know, it's great. It's such a thick accent. Like, you can hardly understand them.

[Josh Clark]

Right?

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, it's kind of great.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. And even I was reading a quote from Shabba Ranks about how, like, oh, man, Shabbat Ranks. Like, old dance hall guys need to lay off of the younger dance hall guys because they're doing their own thing. And the only reason I know that he said that was from the context of the article, like, explaining that he said that because they had a block quote from him. And I'm like, I have no idea what Shaba Ranks just said. And I wasn't even listening. I was reading it. I just could not make heads or tails out of it.

[Chuck Bryant]

It's one of my favorite. The Jamaican accent is one of my favorite accents on planet Earth. I love it so much.

[Josh Clark]

It's definitely up there with Scottish for me, too.

[Chuck Bryant]

You ever seen the stuff on the Internet where people will be like, if you want to say this in this accent, say these words in American English.

[Josh Clark]

You taught me to say Michael Caine. You say my cocaine.

[Chuck Bryant]

My cocaine.

[Josh Clark]

No, my cocaine. Yeah, that's what I just said.

[Chuck Bryant]

I saw one recently that was very funny, which was, if you want to say Spice Girls in Scottish, you say kind of have to quickly say Space ghettos in English.

[Josh Clark]

Let's hear it.

[Chuck Bryant]

So, like, ask me what I did over the weekend.

[Josh Clark]

What'd you do over the weekend, Chuck?

[Chuck Bryant]

I went to a concert and then asked me who I saw.

[Josh Clark]

Who'd you see, Chuck?

[Chuck Bryant]

The Space Ghettos.

[Josh Clark]

Oh, yeah, that was Pretty dead on. Pretty good, huh? What did you have to drink there? Was it a non drinker? What'd you say?

[Chuck Bryant]

I'm a non drinker.

[Josh Clark]

You didn't drink any urn, bru.

[Chuck Bryant]

What is that?

[Josh Clark]

Remember? That's like their drink. It's like some. Almost an orangey, weird.

[Chuck Bryant]

Oh, I don't remember that.

[Josh Clark]

Oh, yeah, it's like iron brew, but they spell it like earned brew.

[Chuck Bryant]

Oh, I do remember it.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

I didn't know.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, it's. It's something specific. I liked it, but it was like you could easily drink too many at once.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, I could see that. So I think is where we were headed.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. So, yeah, what you have when you put together reggae, reggae music and Rastafarian perspectives and outlook and worldview. That's the word I was looking for. You have what's known as roots reggae and what most people think of as reggae, what they're thinking of as roots reggae. Bob Marley and the Wailers, Roots reggae from Catch a Fire on.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, for sure. And you know, Catch a fire was 72. And like we said, that was their first big reggae album. But they actually. The wailers broke up two years later in 74. And most of the college got into Bob Marley stuff. And the Legend stuff is all post official, like the Wailers as the Wailers. And all of them went on to do their own solo stuff. Obviously. I think Bob Marley had six albums after that until we'll get to his death in 1981. But everyone did. Peter Tosh, who was. He was the real deal, man. He had some great albums. Legalize it in 1976 is a great one. Equal Rights a year later. And then later on in the 80s, he had a very sort of political album called Nuclear War that was really good.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, I had this Peter Tosh live show that I cannot find. It drives me crazy. It's like every other show from that tour exists except for that one. And I can't remember what city. It was like you had a tape or something. So, yeah, it was like a Burn cd. It was so good, man. You could just listen to that on repeat. Right?

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

But yes, his. His lyrics were. And just the whole vibe was way more militant compared to Bob Marley. And so I've seen it described as like when you put Marley and Tosh together. And also Tosh, by the way, was the like, far and away the most musically gifted of the Wailers. He could play all sorts of different stuff. He was also a good songwriter too. But when you put Bob Marley's lyrics together and Peter Tosh's lyrics together into one show or one album or whatever. You had, like, a really rich, complex.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

Album like when. With really cool themes in it. Right. And I saw it. There's a reggae archivist, which is. I'm not sure what you would go study in. In school to become that. A guy named Roger Steffens. And he's. He likened Marley to Martin Luther King Jr. And Tosh to Malcolm X. And, like, they kind of had those. They approached things from those viewpoints. So Marley made the wailers universally palatable, and Peter Tosh inserted, like that. That kind of militant political bent that is also, like, a big part of reggae, too.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. And I think a lot of the credibility for, you know, at least as far as Jamaicans were concerned.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. I saw also that, like, apparently around the world, he's respected at least as much, if not more than he is in Jamaica because he was known to walk the walk. And he was beaten nearly to death by the police several times. Legalize. It was banned in Jamaica. So he took out a newspaper ad and printed the lyrics in it. He was a cool dude, for sure.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. All right, so I think we should take another break. Okay. And we will come back and talk a little bit about a guy named Jimmy Cliff right after this. Mom, can I have Lingokids? Dad, Lingokids, please. When did we become the Lingokids house?

[Josh Clark]

No idea.

[Chuck Bryant]

Last week it was dinosaurs. This week it's Lingo kids.

[Josh Clark]

Why Lingokids?

[Chuck Bryant]

Because it's the best thing ever. We can play games with astronauts, wild animals, and superheroes. With more than 4,000 interactive games, songs, and shows, LingoKids is the number one entertainment platform for young kids. So no dinosaurs and dinosaurs.

[Josh Clark]

Lingokids.

[Chuck Bryant]

Everything kids love.

[Josh Clark]

Download it for free.

[Sponsor/Ad Voice]

I'm Martha Stewart from the Martha Stewart Podcast. You know what I love about cooking? The endless inspiration, sharing exceptional flavors, and, of course, the best ingredients. I refuse to make a dish without them. McCormick has been and is an essential in the kitchen now. McCormick's new line of signature seasonings make bringing fresh inspiration and endless versatility to everyday dishes easier than ever. There's the everyday essential. Garlic and olive oil, the savory sweetness of caramelized onion, and globally inspired flavors like the herby with a touch of heat, chimichurri and chili garlic that elevates everything from ramen to stir fry to even grilled meats. Try the chimichurri blend to make your steaks delicious. Each signature seasoning is crafted by flavor experts to make every dish more delicious. When you want to make your best, it's got to be McCormick. Find your favorite at McCormick.com Big color,

[Josh Clark]

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[Chuck Bryant]

All right, we're back. Take it away, Josh.

[Josh Clark]

Chuck, have you ever heard a song by Jimmy Cliff?

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, I like Jimmy Cliff. Hurricane Hattie was his first big hit in 1962. He was just a kid. He's like 18 years old. And he moved to London and he got a lot more reggae after he moved to London. And he was a big sort of proselytizer for reggae, kind of took it around the world in a lot of ways.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

And one way he did so was in a movie, which I have not seen. It was one that's always been on my list. But the Harder they come in 1972 is definitely a cult classic and was a big, not a huge American hit, but on the movie scene, to film lovers, it was.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. It's also widely considered one of the best soundtracks, too.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

Because it's about reggae and the reggae music industry and Kingston and the way things are in Kingston. And it's. He's like, Jimmy Cliff plays kind of a bandit to an extent. Yeah. Yeah. I haven't seen it either, but it, it's. I just know it's like you said, a cult classic and that as much as, you know, I think simultaneous to Bob Marley touring the world and the Whalers like that movie coming out and being seen outside of Jamaica, like, really helped spread the concept of reggae and what it was all about.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. I mean, when you've got Siskel and Ebert reviewing the Harder They Come on their TV show, like it's spreading fairly mainstream, you know?

[Josh Clark]

Two thumbs up, if I'm not mistaken.

[Chuck Bryant]

Well, I don't know. I know Ebert gave it a thumbs up, but I don't know about Siskel. We'll have to go back and look,

[Josh Clark]

I know I've told you this before, but do you know that Gene Siskel's stated favorite movie was Saturday Night Fever?

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

And he owned the white suit that Travolta wore in Saturday Night Fever.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, that was in our disco episode.

[Josh Clark]

Okay. But it's just such a great fact.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. And you know what? Since that episode, I've had as a I copy pasted from the original New York Times article that inspired Saturday Night Fever. It's been sitting on my desktop on my computer for, like, 10 years unread.

[Josh Clark]

Oh, it's good. It's just. Especially if you go into it knowing it's just one big lie. It's. It's actually even better.

[Chuck Bryant]

Oh, was it. I don't remember that part.

[Josh Clark]

Oh, I'm sorry. I wish I could take that back. I thought you did.

[Chuck Bryant]

No, that's all right.

[Josh Clark]

I'm sorry.

[Chuck Bryant]

I'll still read it.

[Josh Clark]

Okay.

[Chuck Bryant]

It's 10 years from now, and I'll forget, by the way.

[Josh Clark]

Okay, cool. But you'll never forget that Gene Siskel fact I like to bust out every few years.

[Chuck Bryant]

That's right. So we should talk a little bit more about. I guess we talked a little bit about the violence that was going on when reggae was born in Kingston. But over the years, reggae has just sort of been intertwined with a lot of political violence and violent clashes, especially within the country politically. And, you know, they were always in the middle of it, and Bob Marley was usually in the middle of it, trying to bring people together. In 1976, they were in the middle of a clash between the People's National Party, which was the ruling party at the time, and their opponents. And Bob Marley went to play an anti violence concert. And some of the people dragged him on that for, like, saying, no, you're siding with the PNP and Prime Minister Michael Manley just by even playing this event. So I think he'd never. I think there was a lot of frustration there, judging from the documentary, about, like, trying to do the right thing by bringing people together, but some people on the opposition being like, you can't even, like, talk to the other side.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. And the. The. The pnp, the ruling party, they were left wing. It was a socialist experiment I essentially saw. And one reason a lot of people point to is why there was so much unrest and violent clashes. And all that was because the CIA was running around trying to destabilize the country because it was moving to the left rather than the right. That concert you mentioned that. That Bob Marley was frustrated about it, seeming like he was kind of like a handmaiden or whatever to the unpopular prime minister. Two days before he was shot, he was shot, Rita was shot. Two other people were shot in his home. And after Being shot in the chest and the shoulder. He still went on and played that show.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, it was incredible. Two years after that, in 1978, he had the very famous One Love concert because there was still that divided political climate. And once again, Bob Marley's there in the middle, trying to make peace. And he brought the two guys together. He brought Prime Minister Manley together with Edward, I think, Sega, of the Jamaican Labor Party. And that was a huge, huge deal.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. There's a very famous picture of them holding hands. Because Bob Marley's making them.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, exactly.

[Josh Clark]

So Marley actually died of a cancerous growth that started on his toe that he didn't get looked at because he thought it was an old soccer injury. And he actually collapsed in Central park after a pretty great show in Madison Square Garden.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, he opened up for the Commodores and apparently blew the Commodores off the stage. And the real sad thing about his death is that from everything I saw was that that was. He probably could have been very successfully treated for cancer had he gotten it looked at earlier on.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, I saw the survival rate for black men from that particular type of cancer is like 70%. So, yeah, that sucks. But he thought it was a soccer injury, I think.

[Chuck Bryant]

I'm trying to. I mean. Is that what you said?

[Josh Clark]

Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

I don't remember. For some reason, I thought it had something to do with religion, but maybe I'm just not remembering right about that part.

[Josh Clark]

Maybe he did so well in the game, he considered it a religious experience.

[Chuck Bryant]

There might have been a little bit of both.

[Josh Clark]

So Bob Marley was shot, but he didn't die from that. He died from natural causes. Peter Tosh and two years after Peter Tosh, King Tubby were both murdered by gunmen. That's how their lives ended. That's. I mean, like, there's. Nowadays, there's a lot of reggae artists who've, you know, come along over the years. This is not. Like, there was still rather limited reggae artists, a limited number. So two major reggae stars being murdered is actually pretty significant.

[Chuck Bryant]

Oh, for sure. Peter Tosh's murder was brutal. Like, he had these three guys that busted in, basically held him hostage in his house and tortured him, trying to get money from him. And as people, like friends would come by the house just to. Through the course of the day, they would be taken in and held hostage. And eventually, like, just. There was just a big, like, kind of crazy shootout and he was shot in the head. It was brutal.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. The worst thing about that, aside from the fact that he was murdered, his murderer was a guy Named Dennis Loban. Leppo was what people called him. And he knew that Peter Tosh had money because he had gotten out of prison. And Peter Tosh gave him a place to stay, fed him, took care of him to help him get back on his feet. And that's how Leo Loban repaid him, by murdering him because he was trying to rob him for more money.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. Pretty brutal.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. And then King Tubby was murdered in what they think was a Botched robbery in 1989.

[Chuck Bryant]

Well, that's essentially what this was with Tosh too. Because the whole time they were just trying to get money that he said he didn't have at the house.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, I guess so.

[Chuck Bryant]

All right, so we mentioned London earlier. London is probably like the second city of reggae after Kingston.

[Josh Clark]

It's the Chicago of reggae.

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Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

So because of what's called the Windrush generation, which is when Caribbean immigrants post World War II, from British colonies and former colonies, they started moving elsewhere. And a lot of them arrived in the UK and that came over. Their music and their culture and their food and everything came over. And that happened in London. And there were all of a sudden a bunch of. Well, not. It sort of depends. Like sometimes white London acts, sometimes Londoners that were black, depending on the band. But like I mentioned the Police and the Specials and Madness, obviously they were in UB40 and you know, those ended up being like really big bands. But they also influenced like the punk scene with the Clash and the Sex Pistols even.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, Johnny Rotten was heavily influenced. He went on to found Public Image Ltd. And thanks to him, Johnny Rotten liking reggae and Jaw Wobble, the bassist, really liking dub reggae. PiL had a certain reggae dub reggae thing to it going on. So hats off to reggae for giving us Public Image Limited.

[Chuck Bryant]

And it wasn't just London. We can't get into all this in a super detailed way. But it, you know, reggae went across Africa. There were like native born South African artists that like became reggae stars. I know the Ivory coast really got into the Rastafari culture for a while.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, no, for sure. And some, some of them, the taking up the kind of political causes and calls for revolution. Some have actually happened to become political leaders in their country. Like Bobby Winne of Uganda or Shadow Wale in Ghana. Like these are reggae artists who actually have talked the talk and they're now political whether they like it or not.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. New Zealand, we're looking at you because who knew? I didn't know. In 1979, Bob Marley played in Auckland and he Kind of caught a fire there. And Maori musicians sort of adopted reggae for a while. And, you know, they brought their own thing, like always happens when you sort of adopt a music. They brought their own vocal harmonies and stuff. But they also, like everywhere reggae went that it caught fire. I think people, except in college Dorms in the 80s and 90s in the United States, there was a big identification with the politics, sort of the bottom up politics of it.

[Josh Clark]

All. Right. Yeah, yeah. That was kind of lost on the dorm crowd. Was it?

[Chuck Bryant]

I mean, I think we all like to think we were down with the movement, but we just wanted the bumper stickers.

[Josh Clark]

But I'm sure it definitely helps shape our worldviews as well.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, I think it opened us up to other things, for sure.

[Josh Clark]

There are two other things that you can draw a direct line to from reggae to current music. One is hip hop, like you said. And that line seems to go through DJ Kool Herc, who was definitely prominently featured in our hip hop episode because he was actually born in Kingston, I think, and ended up in the Bronx. And it just so happened that within a few years of DJ Kool Herc moving to the Bronx, hip hop came up in New York out of nowhere. So they think that it was him.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, I mean, he didn't come to the Bronx till he was 12, so he had a lot of years in Jamaica to like bring that influence. And yeah, like I said, that toasting Jamaican toasting tradition came right along with him.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. And remember you talked about how dub would strip the vocals out of music, so you had instrumental music. He would do that with two turntables and a microphone, as Beck said.

[Chuck Bryant]

That's right. Other places, Panama, like Central and South America, had a big thing they called reggae en espanol. And Puerto Rico, they had like an underground Spanish language, like reggae rap called reggaeton that came along. And like, you can draw a direct line from that to somebody like Bad Bunny.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. I think it's even like they call Bad Bunny's music Ray Gayton.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, I think so.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

Boy, that super bowl performance was so fun.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, he really did set the world on fire.

[Chuck Bryant]

I thought it was great. It was a lot of fun.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. Like, he prefigured Erling Holland. He was like the Erling Holland of Super bowl halftime shows. So, Chuck, favorite reggae band of all time.

[Chuck Bryant]

I mean, early Wailers for sure.

[Josh Clark]

Okay. I'm going with Burning Spear.

[Chuck Bryant]

Oh, yeah.

[Josh Clark]

Chuck, did you like the 90s sky revival?

[Chuck Bryant]

Nah, I wasn't into that.

[Josh Clark]

Me either.

[Chuck Bryant]

What's in my Bag.

[Josh Clark]

I got us to listener mail. Now I managed to unlock it for us. Oh, okay.

[Chuck Bryant]

Are we there?

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. Because back in 2008, one of us predicted that we would bag on the 90s mid-90s ska revival in one of our episodes, and that would trigger listener mail.

[Chuck Bryant]

All right, we got a short one here because this episode is a little longer. It's just a quick correction from Dave in California. He said, hey, guys, in the Eleanor Roosevelt episode, instead of inflagrante delicto, which is the common term, Josh coined the term inflagrance. Inflagrante delicato.

[Josh Clark]

Sure.

[Chuck Bryant]

Which could perhaps mean gently, a fire, which Dave says is actually not entirely inappropriate, perhaps.

[Josh Clark]

Right. That's what I. It's kind of what I thought. I didn't realize it. It was delicto. What does delecto mean?

[Chuck Bryant]

Like, I don't know.

[Josh Clark]

On fire. Yeah. What does delicto mean, Chuck?

[Chuck Bryant]

You don't know delicto? Well, I think it means caught in the act, which is what that means as a phrase.

[Josh Clark]

Oh, okay. No, I see that. It's. Yeah. Caught red handed. Yeah. All right, that's fine. But I like mine better.

[Chuck Bryant]

Well, I think stuff you should know. T shirt should clearly be in flagrante delicato.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. The gentle fire.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. The soft touch.

[Josh Clark]

Lay down by the gentle fire with me, baby. You got anything else?

[Chuck Bryant]

I got nothing else. I hope we did reggae justice.

[Josh Clark]

Oh, well, I. I think we did. I hope so, too.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

I feel like every time I reassure you, I'm setting us up for people to be like, you guys suck. You. You did a terrible job. So I'm just gonna say, I hope so. So too. How about that?

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, actually, what usually happens is we get like, hey, you guys did a pretty good job. But also there's this, this, and this, which is exactly what we want.

[Josh Clark]

Yes, but usually it's from experts, and we love that too.

[Chuck Bryant]

That's true.

[Josh Clark]

All right, well, if you want to get in touch with us, like Dave, you said.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, Dave.

[Josh Clark]

Well, you can email us just like Dave did. Send it off to stuffpodcasteartradio.com

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[Chuck Bryant]

Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio.

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For more podcasts, my heart radio, visit

[Chuck Bryant]

the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. This is an iHeart podcast. Guaranteed Human.