Roots Archives Forum

I'm curious as to which song or songs are considered to be among the first to employ that Ragga beat, the one which later became the Reggaeton beat.

Cheers.

this beat is like 1000 years old

Don't know , it's an interesting question.
But I know from watching "Deep Roots" in the first episode about mento, that the drum pattern is already there in the mento days!

I don't know the first ones. But i know the ragga tunes that are foundation of the riddims

'Pay Down Pon It' & 'Dem Bow' by Shabba Rankin were amongst the first popular tunes that have the sound.

DonDigital wrote:this beat is like 1000 years old

Even older than that! But I'm asking about the first time it was used in modern Jamaican music.

What year did those Shabba Rankin songs come out in?

I know I've heard the Ragga beat in late 80s King Jammy and King Tubby's productions. It sounds like in those early cuts, the beat was produced by the engineer manipulating the faders or mute buttons on the control board as the digital reggae beat was playing. I know engineers had been doing this for a long time already at live dances. So I guess my real question is, what was the first track that featured the instruments (or drum machines, snyths, whatever) playing this beat, as opposed to the engineer creating it in post production using the control board?

I remember this beat becoming popular around 88-89,it comes from a Jamaican spiritual music called Poco which comes from the churches.

Admiral Bailey had a tune called poco man jam which is one of the first i remember,i think the rydim was called pocomania produced by Steelie and Cleavie.

Another 2 big riddims through the Ragga phase was the "Bogle" and "Duck dance"

interesting one this... i went looking for a piece i read where king jammy was being interviewed, (cant find it at the moment)about the birth of ragga. he said that after sleng teng ,which wasn't the first digital record, he built the punanny riddim with, if i remember right, steelie and cleevie. the beat was the benchmark for everything else that followed, so i presume he meant the drum and bass and therefore the ragga beat. i youtubed 'reggaeton' to check out the beat. why is it called 'reggae'ton. its more like latin hip hop/dance music. anyways... forward on.

ital kemar

Gingy Fly wrote:Another 2 big riddims through the Ragga phase was the "Bogle" and "Duck dance"

Duck Dance was definately one of the first.What year was dis tune?

Bogle was 93