Reggae
Reggae is a Jamaican style with a slow, heavy groove, where guitar or keyboard chops fall on the offbeats and the bass carries the melody.
It grew out of ska and rocksteady in Kingston in the late 1960s. The drums often stress the third beat of the bar in a pattern called the one drop, and lyrics range from love songs to social protest and Rastafari faith. Reggae is slower than ska and puts far more weight on bass and drums, an approach that later shaped dub, dancehall and hip hop.
Artists it is known for: Bob Marley and the Wailers, Peter Tosh, Jimmy Cliff, Toots and the Maytals.
- Family
- Reggae & Caribbean
- On Spotify
- A current genre
- What it is
- A genre
- From
- Kingston, Jamaica, late 1960s
- Trackify listeners who play it
- 3%
About 2,500 of 83,000 Trackify listeners with public profiles have reggae among their top artists of the last four weeks. Rounded; updated 13 November 2026.
Reggae artists
Bob Marley & The Wailers
Vybz Kartel
Shaggy
Natiruts
O Rappa
Popcaan
Slightly Stoopid
UB40
Kolohe Kai
Dread Mar I
The reggae artists most Trackify listeners have in their top fifty. Each opens on Spotify.
Sources
The definition is written for this site from open sources, and was checked against them on 13 November 2026.