Reggae is the heartbeat of Jamaica - a brand of reggae music as strongly identified with the island as R&B is with Detroit or jazz with new reggae Orleans. It's a major factor in the Jamaican economy, at no time better demonstrated than during Reggae Sunsplash and Reggae Sumfest (enormous annual reggae festivals), when almost one-quarter million visitors arrive from overseas to dance and sway in delirious union to the soulful, syncopated beat on the tiny island.

Reggae evolved in the ghettos of Kingston, Jamaica, born of the tensions and social protest simmering violently in the late 1960's. Jamaicans will tell you that reggae means "coming from de people," a phrase coined (as was the name reggae itself) by Toots Hibbert of Toots and the Maytals.