Raggamuffin music (or simply ragga) is a subgenre of
dancehall
Dancehall is a genre of Jamaican popular music that originated in the late 1970s. Initially, dancehall was a more sparse version of reggae than the roots reggae, roots style, which had dominated much of the 1970s.Barrow, Steve & Dalton, Peter (2 ...
and
reggae
Reggae () is a music genre that originated in Jamaica during the late 1960s. The term also denotes the modern popular music of Jamaica and its Jamaican diaspora, diaspora. A 1968 single by Toots and the Maytals, "Do the Reggay", was the first ...
music. The instrumentals primarily consist of
electronic music
Electronic music broadly is a group of music genres that employ electronic musical instruments, circuitry-based music technology and software, or general-purpose electronics (such as personal computers) in its creation. It includes both music ...
with heavy use of
sampling.
Wayne Smith's "
Under Mi Sleng Teng", produced by
King Jammy in 1985 on a
Casio MT-40 synthesizer, is a seminal ragga song. "Sleng Teng" boosted Jammy's popularity immensely, and other producers quickly released their own versions of the
riddim, accompanied by dozens of different vocalists.
Origins
Ragga originated in
Jamaica
Jamaica is an island country in the Caribbean Sea and the West Indies. At , it is the third-largest island—after Cuba and Hispaniola—of the Greater Antilles and the Caribbean. Jamaica lies about south of Cuba, west of Hispaniola (the is ...
during the 1980s, at the same time that
electronic dance music's popularity was increasing globally. Ragga spread to Europe, North America, and Africa, eventually spreading to Japan, India, and the rest of the world. Ragga heavily influenced
early jungle music, and also spawned the
syncretistic
bhangragga style when fused with
bhangra. In the 1990s, ragga and
breakcore music fused, creating a style known as
raggacore.
The term "raggamuffin" is an intentional misspelling of "
ragamuffin", a word that entered the
Jamaican Patois
Jamaican Patois (; locally rendered Patwah and called Jamaican Creole by linguists) is an English-based creole language with influences from West African, Arawak, Spanish and other languages, spoken primarily in Jamaica and among the Jamaican ...
lexicon after the
British Empire
The British Empire comprised the dominions, Crown colony, colonies, protectorates, League of Nations mandate, mandates, and other Dependent territory, territories ruled or administered by the United Kingdom and its predecessor states. It bega ...
colonized Jamaica in the 17th century. Despite the British colonialists' pejorative application of the term, Jamaican youth
appropriated it as an
ingroup designation. The term "raggamuffin music" describes the
music of Jamaica's "ghetto dwellers".
Ragga and hip hop music
King Jammy produced 1985 hit, "
(Under Me) Sleng Teng" by
Wayne Smith. In the late 1980s, Jamaican deejay
Daddy Freddy and
Asher D's "
Ragamuffin Hip-Hop" became the first multinational
single to feature the word "ragga" in its title.
[Wynn, Ron]
''Ragamuffin Hip-Hop'' Review
. AllMusic
AllMusic (previously known as All-Music Guide and AMG) is an American online database, online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on Musical artist, musicians and Mus ...
. Retrieved 16 November 2020.
See also
*
Reggae
Reggae () is a music genre that originated in Jamaica during the late 1960s. The term also denotes the modern popular music of Jamaica and its Jamaican diaspora, diaspora. A 1968 single by Toots and the Maytals, "Do the Reggay", was the first ...
*
Ska
*
Bouyon-muffin
*
Bhangragga
*
Jamaican Patois
Jamaican Patois (; locally rendered Patwah and called Jamaican Creole by linguists) is an English-based creole language with influences from West African, Arawak, Spanish and other languages, spoken primarily in Jamaica and among the Jamaican ...
, the language of the distinctive vocals found in ragga
References
The world of DJs and the turntable culture By Todd Souvignier* Stascha (Staša) Bader: ''Worte wie Feuer: Dancehall Reggae und Raggamuffin''. ''Words Like Fire. Dancehall Reggae and Raggamuffin''. Dissertation Thesis at the Zurich University, 1986. Buchverlag Michael Schwinn, Neustadt, Deutschland, 1. Aufl. 1988, 2. Aufl. 1992
* René Wynands: ''Do The Reggae. Reggae von Pocomania bis Ragga und der Mythos Bob Marley.'' Pieper Verlag und Schott. 1995 (Pieper), (Schott
Online-Version* Norman C. Stolzoff: ''Wake the Town and Tell the People. Dancehall Culture in Jamaica.'' Durham; London: Duke University Press, 2000.
{{Authority control
Dancehall
Jamaican styles of music
Reggae genres