Reggae genres

There are several subgenres of reggae music including various predecessors to the form.

Reggae grew out of earlier musical styles such as mento, ska and rocksteady. Mento is a Jamaican folk music based on traditions brought to Jamaica by West African slaves which blended with later influences such as the quadrille. Mento reached its peak of popularity in the 1950s with the success of acts such as Louise Bennett, Count Lasher, Lord Flea, Laurel Aitken, and Harry Belafonte, but is sometimes confused with calypso, a similar style from Trinidad.

Ska began in the 1950s, coinciding with Jamaica's independence from Great Britain. By the 1950s, musicians began to absorb the influences R&B and jazz from the United States, resulting in the development of ska. It incorporates elements of mento and calypso, as well as American Jazz and R&B, which were popular on Jamaican radio. The style is characterized chord chops on the offbeat, sometimes called "upstrokes". The tempo is usually upbeat and often features horns, usually trumpets, saxophones, and trombones, as well and pianos and keyboards, bass, and drums. In the early-to-mid 1960s, ska became the most popular form of music in Jamaica and set the stage for rocksteady and reggae. Many of ska's popular acts such as Desmond Dekker & the Aces, Bob Marley and the Wailers, the Skatalites, Toots & the Maytals, Byron Lee & the Dragonaires, and the Melodians, later beame associated with reggae.

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