reggae, Jamaican popular music that developed in the 1960s among Kingston's poor blacks, drawing on American "soul" music and traditional African and Jamaican folk music and ska (a Jamaican and British dance-hall music). Many of its highly political songs proclaim the tenets of the Rastafarian religious movement. Instrumentation usually includes an ensemble of organ, piano, drums, and electric guitars, led by an electric bass played at high volume. Springy, offbeat rhythm characterizes its sound. It is popular internationally and has influenced African music. Bob Marley and his group, the Wailers, and Toots and the Maytals are among the best-known performers.

Jamaican popular music and dance style. It originated in the mid-1960s as a music of the Jamaican poor, reflecting social discontent and the Rastafarian movement. Its instrumentation features an electric bass played at high volume as a lead instrument, around which an ensemble of organ, piano, drums, and lead and rhythm electric guitars plays short ostinato phrases with regular accents on the offbeats. Reggae was popularized in the U.S. by the film The Harder They Come (1973), starring the singer Jimmy Cliff, and through tours by Bob Marley and the Wailers and by Toots (Hibbert) and the Maytals, whose influence was felt among white rock musicians.

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