STORIES
The written histories
Longer pieces about how the music actually happened — a studio, a rivalry, a rhythm, an argument that would not settle. Each one is tied to the records it concerns, and carries how firmly the atlas stands behind it.
144 published
Many of reggae's most durable solo careers started in someone else's harmony stack.
Torch-bearersA running thread through Jamaican song: elders who hand the microphone directly to the next generation.
Basslines that defined reggaeReggae is often called bass music; these are some of the hands that made the bassline the lead instrument.
From Alpha horns to the studio sessionA reform school on South Camp Road quietly supplied the horn section for most of reggae's biggest records.
Keys behind the riddimThe organ's upstroke and the piano's bubble did as much to define reggae's feel as any bassline.
The house bands that built the Jamaican soundSingers and producers changed by the week; the studio band underneath them almost never did.
Lovers rock: the diaspora builds its own reggaeIn British-Jamaican bedrooms and blues dances, women singers made a genre of their own.
The revival generation finds its voiceA 2010s wave of singers reclaimed roots reggae for a new century.
Three-part harmony and the roots messageThe vocal trio carried Rastafari's word from Studio One into the roots era.
When the beat slowed: rocksteady's singers take the stageThe 1966 tempo drop turned a session-band music into an island of singers.
Kingston's fashion machineFrom Clarks and Kangols in the dance to Caribbean runways and global catwalks.
The stage that kept the folk formsHow Jamaica built companies and schools to hold Kumina, Jonkonnu - and eventually dancehall.
Who keeps the recordThe museums, archives and channels that store Jamaica's musical memory.
Writing - and toasting - the Jamaican languageHow Patois travelled from playground stigma to page, pulpit and microphone.
Beaches, ovals and lawns: where the dance actually happenedThe Jamaican stage is usually open to the sky - a beach, a sports oval, a plantation lawn.
Music beyond Kingston: a parish map of Jamaican soundReggae's story is usually told through Kingston - but its roots and its stars are scattered across every parish.
The front line and the far east: how reggae built places abroadJamaican music didn't just travel - it named streets, districts and venues on four continents.
From Sleng Teng to the laptopThe digital riddim turned the producer into the star of the record - and the story runs from a Casio preset to the modern hit factory.
King Tubby's school of engineersAt Waterhouse and Maxfield Avenue, the mixing engineer stopped being a technician and became an author.
The producer owned the riddimIn Jamaica's foundation years the man who paid for the session owned the sound - and often the shop, the studio and the label too.