February's (late) Signal Subscriber Mixtape

The Reggae Edition

Sorry I am so late on last month’s playlist! Get ready for two this month!

I actually started this mixtape at the very beginning of February. The Criterion Channel has been featuring a slew of reggae-inspired films leading to a hell of a lot of Jamaican-primo listening and thus this playlist which is in no way a completist overview of reggae music…and is missing the true giants of the genre and a slew of important figures who are lesser known. Instead, it is a selection of songs that I love…songs that I have been playing over and over this month with a spotlight of one of my favorite all-time singers from the Island.

For the uninitiated, to put it simply: first came ska (the early 60s) which slowed down a little to create the rocksteady sound. Eventually, artists like Bob Marley became influenced by the meditative Nyabinghi drones of the Rastafarian faith and in turn created a slower sound that is commonly referred to as Reggae Music. Anyone deeply involved in this conversation w…