reggae
(ˈrɛgeɪ)
Also Reggae, Reggay.
[Origin unknown; perh. connected with Jamaican English rege-rege quarrel, row (in Cassidy and Le Page, Dict. Jamaican Eng. (1967) 380/1).]
A kind of popular music, of Jamaican origin, characterized by a strongly accentuated off-beat and often a prominent bass; a dance or song set to this music. Also attrib.
| 1968 (song-title) Do the Reggay. 1969 Daily Mirror 10 Oct. 19/1 Reggae, West Indian music. 1969 Observer 23 Nov. 25/8 The visiting American executives..dancing the Reggae, Jamaica's successor to the Ska. 1969 Listener 25 Dec. 905/2 A very dapper and jaunty Reggae group called the Pioneers. 1970 Melody Maker 3 Oct. 25/6 If I ever did reggae again, it would have to be darned good reggae, and there's not much of that around. It's such a blank type of music. 1971 Advocate-News (Barbados) 17 Sept. (Guyana Suppl.) p. vi (Advt.), A rum punch..served to an atmosphere of reggae, calypso and steelband music. 1973 G. Sims Hunters Point xiii. 120 I'm a reggae fan. West Indian music. And early Beatles like ‘From Me to You’. 1973 Black World Jan. 77/2, I heard the Rastas credited with starting everything from the island's most popular dance, ‘Reggae’, to the embryonic Black Consciousness movement. 1975 Globe & Mail (Toronto) 16 July 7/3 The reggaes..should be viewed as songs of social protest in which the dispossessed describe their personal experience and comment upon the social injustice of the system. 1976 Telegraph (Brisbane) 28 Apr. 58/4 As reggae grows in popularity, ever more artists are performing material with a reggae flavour. 1977 McKnight & Tobler Bob Marley iii. 42 So we come to reggae, which the British initially found difficulty in pronouncing, let alone understanding. 1978 Sunday Times 29 Jan. 43/2 Althea and Donna met at a reggae festival in Ochos Rios. 1979 Spectator 1 Dec. 13/3 The bulk of the reggae-blacks were born here and yet feel themselves to be foreigners. |
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Add: Hence ˈreggaefied a., influenced by or arranged as reggae music.
| 1976 New Musical Express 31 July 39/5 He crooned Sam Cooke's ‘Bring It On Home To Me’,..and his own reggaefied ‘Baby Lay Your Head (Down On My Bed)’. 1986 City Limits 15 Jan. 41 The limp reggaefied pop/soul..fails to prepare you for the live show. |