Spotlight on AUPEO! Channels: Funky Kingston

Fancy some dampened guitars? Feel like jumping at some irresistible Jamaican-like riddims? Our Funky Kingston Channel provides you with the whole range of beautiful reggae music, from ska to rocksteady, roots, dub and dancehall. The selection is an equal mixture of songs about inequality and hardship, but also of peace, love and having fun. On our Funky Kingston Channel you will find plenty of drum and bass to shake your booty to, lovers’ rock to grab your partner by the hand to, or warrior styles to piece together a plan to resist the evils of Babylon!

Jamaican Folk music grew from American jazz, R&B and Soul, which were mixed with Caribbean mento and Calypso. Reggae developed from a clash of society, politics, economics and culture, and really is an organic extension to Jamaican society. It foreshadowed, if not outright influenced modern popular music in many ways: the producer and engineer as artist, remixing, the MC as musician and the importance of riddim (or simply the overriding importance of drum and bass). It is remarkable that these innovations were developed with very limited technical and economic resources and cultural aspirations. Maybe it’s the DIY approach of the pioneers of reggae that continues to influence so many artists around the globe, thus enabling local music of a small nation to have such an influence on popular Western music.

Make sure to check out the Studio One Story, a near definitive guide to one of Jamaica’s greatest record labels and its founder Clement “Coxsone” Dodd:

Recommended If You Like: Don Drummond’s Man in the Street, Freddie McGregor’s Bobby Babylon, Joe Higgs’ Song My Enemy Sings”, Junior Murvin’s Police and Thieves and, of course, Toots & The Maytals’ Funky Kingston!