Different Types Of Reggae Music

Different Types Of Reggae Music - Crown Prince Of Reggae Dennis Brown

Reggae music was originated on a small island in the Caribbean called Jamaica.  This is a genre that is strongly associated with Jamaica, and that is because it did start there in the 1960s. (Read more about Reggae Music and Its Origin here)

Reggae music is the mother of Dancehall, Rocksteady, Ska and even Mento.

Dancehall Music
Dancehall is a genre of Jamaican popular music that originated in the late 1970s. Initially, dancehall was a more sparse version of reggae than the roots style, which had dominated much of the 1970s.

In the mid-1980s, digital instrumentation became more prevalent, changing the sound considerably, with digital dancehall (or "ragga") becoming increasingly characterized by faster rhythms. (Read more about dancehall music here)

Rocksteady Music
Rocksteady is a music genre that originated in Jamaica around 1966.  A successor of ska and a precursor to reggae, rocksteady was the dominant style of music in Jamaica for nearly two years, performed by many of the artists who helped establish reggae. 

The term rocksteady comes from a popular (slower) dance style mentioned in the Alton Ellis song 'Rocksteady' that matched the new sound. (Read more about Rocksteady music here)

Ska Music
Ska is a music genre that originated in Jamaica in the late 1950s and was the precursor to rocksteady and reggae.  It combined elements of Caribbean mento and calypso with American jazz and rhythm and blues. Ska is characterized by a walking bass line accented with rhythms on the offbeat.

It was developed in Jamaica in the 1960s when Prince Buster, Clement "Coxsone" Dodd, and Duke Reid formed sound systems to play American rhythm and blues and then began recording their own songs. In the early 1960s, ska was the dominant music genre of Jamaica and was popular with British mods.