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
From ska instrumentals to modern dancehall, a cluster of Chinese-Jamaican entrepreneurs ran the shops, studios and labels at the centre of the music.
From Brentford Road to a global No. 1: the long life of a Studio One riddimHow a 1968 Studio One instrumental travelled decades to become a worldwide hit.
Music Works '88: Gussie Clarke, the Rumours riddim and dancehall's clean crossoverA single 1988 rhythm carried Jamaican dancehall into American R&B radio.
One riddim, many voices: how the version built Jamaican musicIn Jamaica the rhythm track, not the finished song, is the durable unit of creativity.
Wake the Town: Duke Reid's rocksteady and the birth of the deejay recordHow a toast over a Treasure Isle rhythm helped invent the modern deejay.
Fast chat: Kingston to South London and backThe rapid-fire deejay style crossed the Atlantic twice, and came home transformed.
From toasting to chatting: how the deejay took overThe Jamaican deejay grew from a hype-man behind the selector into the star of the record.
Junjo, Volcano and the youth-deejay boomIn the early 1980s a wave of teenage deejays turned the dancehall over to youth.
Sting and the art of the clash lyricistOn one Boxing Night stage, the deejay's word became a weapon of pure performance.
Counter to catalogue: how record shops became record labelsIn Jamaica and the diaspora, the retail counter was the A&R department.
From Little Jamaica to Fulton Mall: the diaspora record shopIn the diaspora the reggae shop was community infrastructure.
Orange Street to North Parade: Kingston's record districtA few downtown blocks pressed, sold and clashed the whole music into being.
Pre-release and the counter: how UK shops broke Jamaican recordsBritain's specialist shops were reggae's second engine.
House of Joy: the cabinet that built a nation's bassHow a wartime radar technician's amplifier and speaker cabinet set the template for sound-system bass.
String up: setting the set and tuning the roomBefore a record plays, the crew builds and tunes a machine to the shape of the room.
The box-men: unsung builders of the weightThe carpenters and engineers who built the sound get little of the credit the record labels keep.
The scoop and the folded horn: engineering the slow, heavy bassWhy nearly every reggae sound rests on a folded-horn bass bin, and what its deliberate dip is for.
King Tubby's soldering iron: the engineer as authorHow a Waterhouse repairman turned a mixing desk into an instrument and became the uncredited composer of dub.
The electronics men and the birth of the sound systemBefore there were selectors and deejays, there was the amplifier, and the men who built it.
Tubby's school and the UK valve mastersThe electronics craft as an apprenticeship, and its journey from Waterhouse to London and New York.