How Jamaica’s 1950s DJs Gave Rise to Their Counterparts on the Disco and Hip-Hop Scenes

BOOK EXCERPT In his new book, And the Roots of Rhythm Remain, music impresario Joe Boyd traces the vast influence of global music. Here, how Jamaican sound-system mavens helped kick off a worldwide beat. By Joe Boyd September 10, 2024 Lee “Scratch” Perry at Ariwa Studios in London, October 1984.David Corio/Redferns. Save this storySave Save this storySave In Jamaica during the 1950s, people began to gather in parks and on beaches, partying to music that was spun by entrepreneurial disc jockeys and piped through outdoor loudspeakers. This quirk of economics, geography, and technology would not only vibrate across the island but, by the 1970s and ’80s, across the planet. At the time, the British Colonial Office was trying to force the island into independence as part of what was called a “West Indies federation.” Jamaica, however, was different. Twelve hundred miles west of the other British islands, and larger and more populous than Trinidad, Jamaica had a longer and more brutal history, and, lacking Trinidad’s oil wells, was much poorer. ‘And the Roots of Rhythm Remain: A Journey through Global Music’ A decade before, Jamaica’s search for an economic engine had settled on bauxite, the raw material from which aluminum...