There aren’t many that know how to party like the Jamaicans. And as necessity is the mother of invention, the only outcome had to be the Soundsystem.

A precursor to the rave by 40 years, the Soundsystem is a temporary party, powered by generators and a mountain of speakers sometimes mounted to a truck or trailer,  In the 50s and 60s the soundsystems were playing mostly American R&B but the sound evolved as the local musicians started producing their own brand of party music.  Soundsystems made the DJ the star of the show way before Grandmaster Flash, Jam Master Jay or even Pauly D.  While modern sound equipment makes it possible for one DJ to run the show, early soundsystems had a division of labor.  The DJ was more of a master of ceremony, pumping up the crowd and making sure the crowd’s energy didn’t drop while  the Selector is in charge of choosing and manipulating the songs, changing the tone or tempo and adding sound effects that sometime includes real gun shots. Soundsystems were early innovators for a lot of tricks and techniques that have become staples of every modern DJ’s arsenal.  Call and response, bass drops, record back spins, mixing beats, DJ battles, and using white label remixes of popular recordings were all be being done by early Soundsystems.

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As the local music and soundsystems evolved, it gave rise to a new brand of influential record label and recording artist.  The most famous label was Studio One. “The Motown of Jamaica” recorded artists like Bob Marley, Toots and the Maytals, Lee Scratch Perry, The Skatalites and on and on.

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This entry was posted on Friday, February 5th, 2010 at 1:52 pm and is filed under Friday Music . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.