The front line and the far east: how reggae built places abroad

Bristol district with deep West Indian sound-system roots, home to the St Pauls Carnival and the Bamboo Club, whose bass culture underpinned later Bristol acts such as Smith & Mighty.

Steel Pulse came out of Handsworth in Birmingham, formed by schoolfriends around David Hinds — born there in 1956 to parents who had migrated from Jamaica in the mid-1950s — and were the British reggae band that answered the National Front directly rather than obliquely. Their first Island single, "Ku Klux Klan" in February 1978, was written by Hinds at that party, and the band performed it in hoods; the debut album Handsworth Revolution followed the same year into police violence and a rising far right, reached the UK top ten, and remains the record British reggae is measured by. They played the Rock Against Racism circuit alongside punk bands, which put roots reggae in front of an audience that had not sought it out. With Babylon the Bandit they became the first non-Jamaican act to win the reggae Grammy, in 1987, when the category was still called Best Reggae Recording; it was renamed Best Reggae Album in 1992.

Large concert hall at 91-12 144th Place in Jamaica, Queens, that emerged by the late 1990s as New York's premier reggae and dancehall venue and a marquee stage for World Clash and East Coast sound clashes.

Inner-city Birmingham district that gave its name to Steel Pulse's 1978 debut 'Handsworth Revolution' and, in the 1980s, fielded Steel Pulse, UB40 and Musical Youth from one reggae scene.

Laneway off Eglinton Avenue West officially named Reggae Lane in 2015 and marked by a large mural honouring Toronto reggae figures including Leroy Sibbles and Jackie Mittoo — a civic memorial to Little Jamaica's music history amid debates over the neighbourhood's survival.

Japanese port city that is the birthplace of the country's championship sound-clash culture, where Mighty Crown formed in 1991 and grew into eight-time World Clash winners.

Pioneering West Indian live-music venue at 12 Dalston Lane, London, founded 1966 by Newton Dunbar and Sir Collins; a foundational stage for Jamaican artists and the evolution of reggae into UK dance music until its 1997 closure.

The Eglinton Avenue West district of Toronto that, from the 1960s, became one of the largest producers of reggae outside Kingston, dense with record shops, studios and clubs; construction of the Eglinton Crosstown LRT and gentrification later shuttered many businesses, prompting a 2021 heritage-district study.

South London district that became the heart of Black British life after Windrush-era Caribbean settlement, incubating blues dances, record shops and the UK lovers-rock sound.

The Yokohama sound founded in 1991 by the brothers Sami-T and Masta Simon. Their World Clash win in 1999 was the moment the clash circuit stopped being a Caribbean and diaspora affair: a Japanese sound had beaten the best on their own terms, with their own dubplates, and the form has been global since.

East Flatbush corridor around Nostrand, Church and Flatbush Avenues, officially designated Little Caribbean, and the heart of Brooklyn's Jamaican dancehall community — sometimes called Jamaica's '15th parish'.