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Originally Posted by jackhammer
Awesome thread. Two great threads regarding Reggae on MB. Essential learning!
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I started the thread unaware of your fantasic thread of reggae albums with Bulldog and my intention was simply to share some of the songs that meant a lot to me during the golden age of roots reggae. Maybe this will create an new interest in the roots reggae style which has always been my first musical love.
Some of the most signifcant trends in contemporary mainstream pop were reggae innovations including the dancehall sound system, dub, and track remixing.
Most importantly, there would be no rap music today without U-Roy, Big Youth and the other Jamaican deejays exported the practice of toasting to the hip hop scene in the Bronx and Brooklyn in the Seventies. One of the reasons I've never been terribly fond of rap music is that U-Roy was rapping a long time before Kurtis Blow, the Furious Five or Run DMC.
U-Roy had better lyrics and a more refined delivery than any rapper. Theew are only two only American hip hop groups that come close to the political consciousness and lyrical sophistication of the original Jamaican toasters and dub poets were Arrested Development and Digable Planets.
Eminem for all of his supposed lyrical and rapping talents would be blown away by old school Jamaican toasters like U-Roy, Papa Levi or Charlie Chaplin in a rap throw-down.