15 Great Reggae Albums of 2020
In 2011, Jamaican writer and activist Dutty Bookman coined the phrase "reggae revival" to describe artists like Protoje, Chronixx, Jah9, Kabaka Pyramid, Jesse Royal, and others who tended to favor live band instrumentation, a socially conscious message, and a return to the Jamaican music that predated the pop-dancehall explosion of the 2000s. Almost a decade later, the reggae revival movement continues to grow, and at this point, it feels like an injustice to call it a "revival." These artists aren't looking backwards; most of them are finding new and exciting ways to fuse reggae, dancehall, hip hop, R&B, soul, and other styles of music, and coming out with music that feels fresh and forward-thinking. When you listen to the best reggae of 2020, you can of course trace a lot of it back to the heydays of Sly & Robbie or Lee "Scratch" Perry or The Wailers, but it also sounds like entirely new music, separate from anything that happened in the past. Reggae is a genre that's alive and well; some of the most uniquely appealing music happening right now is coming from within reggae.