Reggaestep (

portmanteau In linguistics, a blend—also known as a blend word, lexical blend, or portmanteau—is a word formed by combining the meanings, and parts of the sounds, of two or more words together.

of reggae and dubstep) is a fusion genre of

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 and

dubstep Dubstep is a genre of electronic dance music that originated in South London in the early 2000s. The style emerged as a UK garage offshoot that blended 2-step rhythms and sparse dub production, as well as incorporating elements of broken ...

that gained popularity online in the early 2010s, particularly on

SoundCloud SoundCloud is a German audio streaming service owned and operated by SoundCloud Global Limited & Co. KG. The service enables its users to upload, promote, and share audio. Founded in 2007 by Alexander Ljung and Eric Wahlforss, SoundCloud is ...

. Reggaestep typically has similar drum samples as those used in reggae; however, the timing of these drums corresponds with the typical syncopation of drums in

. Other influence taken from reggae include harmonic accentuation of the offbeats, however off-beat rhythms can sometimes be layered on top of more traditional dubstep or ragga melodies. The tempo tends to be at 140 BPM which is typical to dubstep. The "drops" in reggaestep are very similar to those of dubstep, but often follow similar melody patterns to reggae.

Popularity

One of the most popular reggaestep tracks as of 2013 is " Make It Bun Dem" by well-known American electronic music artist

Skrillex Sonny John Moore (born January 15, 1988), known professionally as Skrillex, is an American DJ, record producer, musician, singer. Raised in Northeast Los Angeles and Northern California, he began his career in 2004 as the lead vocalist of the ...

, the music video of which gaining over 500M YouTube views, as well as over five million hits on SoundCloud. Despite this, the genre is relatively unknown, but was quite prevalent on

in the early 2010s. ''

The Huffington Post ''HuffPost'' (''The Huffington Post'' until 2017, itself often abbreviated as ''HPo'') is an American progressive news website, with localized and international editions. The site offers news, satire, blogs, and original content, and covers p ...

'' recognized reggaestep as a musical genre in its article about " Make It Bun Dem."

References

Reggae genres Electronic dance music genres Fusion music genres Reggae fusion Dubstep Moombahton English styles of music {{music-genre-stub