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A sound system is a group of DJs and audio engineers contributing and working together as one, playing and producing music over a large PA system or sound reinforcement system, typically for a dance event or party.
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A sound system is a group of DJs and audio engineers contributing and working together as one, playing and producing music over a large PA system or sound reinforcement system, typically for a dance event or party.
The sound system concept originated in the 1950s in Kingston, Jamaica. DJs would load up a truck with a generator, turntables, and huge speakers to set up street parties. The sound system scene is a part of Jamaican cultural history and responsible for the rise of modern Jamaican musical styles such as ska, rocksteady, reggae and dub. When Jamaicans emigrated to the United Kingdom, the sound system culture followed and became firmly rooted there in the 1970s. It is still strongly linked with those Jamaican-originated music genres, and some bands or producers still call themselves sound systems, such as Dub Narcotic Sound System and the On-U Sound System. When Asian Dub Foundation are advertised as Asian Dub Foundation, the whole band performs, but when they announce themselves as Asian Dub Foundation Sound System, members of the band mix and play music (by other artists, as well as their own) while one or two MCs rap over the songs. The term also has become connected with sound reinforcement systems by DJs.
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| Music played at the parties See also Rave music |
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The term "sound system" is also used to refer to a free party sound system, also known as a rig. The equipment includes a van, loudspeakers, amplifiers, turntable decks and cables. Larger rigs might also have a fog machine, stage lighting, video projectors and an electrical generator; the generator enables the sound system to be set up anywhere. A sound system collective is usually five or more people, with larger sound systems having more members. Equipment is owned by some and others are DJs, record producers or enthusiastic ravers who help out. They will be the people who organise free parties and teknivals and will be a group of friends with similar interests. Some owners purposely use second hand equipment, to reduce their risk if the equipment is stolen or damaged. This type of rig is called a "suicide rig" and usually used at insecure locations where it may get stolen or damaged and if it is suspected that police will have knowledge of the party.
Sometimes a sound system collective is well known for its wide travels. This type of collective can be described as modern Nomad tribes or New age travellers. In this context the word sound system is used interchangeably to describe either the group of people or the equipment. The techno travelling scene of the 1990s was made of sound system crews like Bedlam sound system and Spiral Tribe. The free party community has been criticized for the unkempt appearance of attendees to such events, accusations of substance abuse of illegal drugs such as MDMA, ketamine, amphetamines and LSD, and complaints about messes left behind by such parties have given the scene a negative reputation. However, despite such complaints, the scene continues to grow with a large following in Bristol, Abergavenny, Newport, London, Devon and Cornwall.
A disc jockey, more commonly abbreviated as DJ, is a person who plays recorded music for an audience. Types of DJs include radio DJs, club DJs, mobile DJs, and turntablists. Originally, the "disc" in "disc jockey" referred to shellac and later vinyl records, but nowadays DJ is used as an all-encompassing term to also describe persons who mix music from other recording media such as cassettes, CDs or digital audio files on a CDJ, controller, or even a laptop. DJs may adopt the title "DJ" in front of their real names, adopted pseudonyms, or stage names.
Reggae is a music genre that originated in Jamaica in the late 1960s. The term also denotes the modern popular music of Jamaica and its diaspora. A 1968 single by Toots and the Maytals, "Do the Reggay", was the first popular song to use the word reggae, effectively naming the genre and introducing it to a global audience. While sometimes used in a broad sense to refer to most types of popular Jamaican dance music, the term reggae more properly denotes a particular music style that was strongly influenced by traditional mento as well as American jazz and rhythm and blues, and evolved out of the earlier genres ska and rocksteady. Reggae usually relates news, social gossip, and political commentary. It is instantly recognizable from the counterpoint between the bass and drum downbeat and the offbeat rhythm section. The immediate origins of reggae were in ska and rocksteady; from the latter, reggae took over the use of the bass as a percussion instrument.
Ska is a music genre that originated in Jamaica in the late 1950s and was the precursor to rocksteady and reggae. It combined elements of Caribbean mento and calypso with American jazz and rhythm and blues. Ska is characterized by a walking bass line accented with rhythms on the off beat. It was developed in Jamaica in the 1960s when Stranger Cole, Prince Buster, Clement "Coxsone" Dodd, and Duke Reid formed sound systems to play American rhythm and blues and then began recording their own songs. In the early 1960s, ska was the dominant music genre of Jamaica and was popular with British mods and with many skinheads.
Toasting, or deejaying is the act of talking or chanting, usually in a monotone melody, over a rhythm or beat by a reggae deejay. It can either be improvised or pre-written.
The music of Jamaica includes Jamaican folk music and many popular genres, such as mento, ska, rocksteady, reggae, dub music, dancehall, reggae fusion and related styles.
Arthur "Duke" Reid CD was a Jamaican record producer, DJ and label owner.
Dub is an electronic musical style that grew out of reggae in the late 1960s and early 1970s. It is commonly considered a subgenre of reggae, though it has developed to extend beyond that style. Generally, dub consists of remixes of existing recordings created by significantly manipulating the original, usually through the removal of vocal parts, the application of studio effects such as echo and reverb, emphasis of the rhythm section, and the occasional dubbing of vocal or instrumental snippets from the original version or other works.
Rocksteady is a music genre that originated in Jamaica around 1966. A successor of ska and a precursor to reggae, rocksteady was the dominant style of music in Jamaica for nearly two years, performed by many of the artists who helped establish reggae, including harmony groups such as the Techniques, the Paragons, the Heptones and the Gaylads; soulful singers such as Alton Ellis, Delroy Wilson, Bob Andy, Ken Boothe and Phyllis Dillon; musicians such as Jackie Mittoo, Lynn Taitt and Tommy McCook. The term rocksteady comes from a popular (slower) dance style mentioned in the Alton Ellis song "Rocksteady", that matched the new sound. Some rocksteady songs became hits outside Jamaica, as with ska, helping to secure the international base reggae music has today.
Sound system may refer to:
Rude boy, rudeboy, rudie, rudi, and rudy are slang terms and a subculture that originated in 1960s Jamaican street culture and are still used today. In the late 1970s, there was a revival in England of the terms rude boy and rude girl, among other variations, being used to describe fans of two-tone ska. This revival of the subculture and term was partially the result of Jamaican immigration to the UK and the so-called ”Windrush” generation. The use of these terms moved into the more contemporary ska punk movement as well. In the UK and especially Jamaica, the terms rude boy and rude girl are used in a way similar to gangsta, yardie or badman.
Teknivals are large free parties which take place for several days. They take place most often in Europe and are often illegal under various national or regional laws. They vary in size from dozens to thousands of people, depending on factors such as accessibility, reputation, weather, and law enforcement. The parties often take place in venues far away from residential areas such as squatted warehouses, empty military bases, beaches, forests or fields. The teknival phenomenon is a grassroots movement which has grown out of the rave, punk, reggae sound system and UK traveller scenes and spawned an entire subculture. Summer is the usual season for teknivals.
There are several subgenres of reggae music including various predecessors to the form.
In Jamaican popular culture, a sound system is a group of disc jockeys, engineers and MCs playing ska, rocksteady or reggae music. The sound system is an important part of Jamaican culture and history.
King Django is an American bandleader, singer, songwriter, arranger, engineer, producer, and multi-instrumentalist, especially in the genres of ska, rocksteady, reggae, dub, dancehall, rhythm & blues and soul. Other influences in his music have included traditional jazz, swing, klezmer, hardcore/punk rock, hip-hop and electronica.
The dance halls of Jamaica in the 1950s and 1960s were home to public dances usually targeted at younger patrons. Sound system operators had big home-made audio systems, spinning records from popular American rhythm and blues musicians and Jamaican ska and rocksteady performers. The term dancehall has also come to refer to a subgenre of reggae that originated around 1980.
New Zealand reggae is the New Zealand variation of the musical genre reggae. It is a large and well established part of New Zealand music, and includes some of the country's most successful and highly acclaimed bands.
The Skatalites are a ska band from Jamaica. They played initially between 1963 and 1965, and recorded many of their best known songs in the period, including "Guns of Navarone." They also played on records by Prince Buster and backed many other Jamaican artists who recorded during that period, including Bob Marley & The Wailers, on their first single "Simmer Down." They reformed in 1983 and have played together ever since.
The Rocksteady 7 or "David Hillyard & the Rocksteady Seven", is an American Ska and Jazz band from New York, New York that formed in 1992. Since the early 1990s the group has consisted of tenor saxophonist and band leader Dave Hillyard as well as percussionist Larry McDonald. In live performances, they are supported by a rotating cast of musicians, including drummer Eddie Ocampo and Dave Wake on keys among others.
Kenneth Lloyd Khouri was a pioneering Jamaican record producer and founder of Federal Records, the first recording studio in Jamaica, which was sold to Bob Marley's Tuff Gong record label in 1981. He is credited by reggae historians for the birth of rocksteady in the 1960s. Rocksteady later mixed with Jamaican mento, a genre in which Khouri also had a pioneering role, leading to the creation of reggae music.
