Lee Perry Dubs The Wailers Vol-I - Lee Perry & The Wailers, 2 of the premier reggae artists/bands ever to leave JA, in the late 1960's & early 70's ska was in decline & a new sound was king. Origins of Riddims. The term ‘riddim’ is the Jamaican patois spelling of rhythm. Thus a riddim is defined as a movement or procedure with uniform or patterned recurrence of a beat, accent, or the like. Going as far back as 1970, reggae music whose main proponent being dancehall has relied heavily on the riddim culture phenomenon.
Skinheads were responsible for making reggae popular. Crazy though this sounds, it’s actually true. Let’s take a peek into the past and see exactly how a genre of music originating from an island in the Carribean became a world phenomenon.
Sure, reggae was massive in Jamaica – no-one can deny that. Outside of its home, it was little more than a curio – so called “race” or “minority” music. You see, record labels were consciously marketing different genres to black audiences and white audiences. And “black” music didn’t get the promotion and airtime that “white” music got.
This all changed in 1969. As skinhead culture has spread to every corner of Great Britain, sales of reggae records sky-rocketed. Hundreds of thousands of copies were being sold to youths anxious to get a hold of the latests sounds -in spite of basically non-existent advertising. It was only a matter of time before reggae burst from its obscurity and into the charts. Finally, the first ever record to become a #1 hit outside of Jamaica topped the charts – Desmond Dekker’s “Israelites”.
Desmond Dekker – “Israelites” (Pyramid, 1969)
To be sure, this record’s themes of slavery and suffering prefigured the wave of Rastafarian roots reggae which was to become widely popular in the 1970s. In the meantime, groups of mostly-white short-haired youths were essentially the only reggae fans around. This song – a skinhead anthem to this day – is a testament to that.
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