Reggae radio, as we covered in our main reggae guide, is a broad format. But within reggae, two traditions deserve their own attention: roots reggae — the spiritually serious, Rastafari-influenced style of the 1970s — and dub, the instrumental remix tradition that reinvented the idea of what a recording could be and influenced nearly every form of bass-heavy music that followed.
Roots reggae
Roots reggae peaked between roughly 1972 and 1982, with Bob Marley and the Wailers at its centre but surrounded by a community of artists — Burning Spear, Culture, Israel Vibration, The Congos — who were equally serious about the music’s spiritual and political content. The style is characterised by heavy bass, one-drop rhythm (the bass drum emphasising the third beat), politically or spiritually charged lyrics, and a production aesthetic developed at studios like Channel One and Joe Gibbs in Kingston.
Roots reggae radio stations play this era straight, often mixing 1970s originals with contemporary roots artists who continue the tradition. The audience skews toward those who take the Rastafari philosophy seriously alongside those who simply love the music.
Dub: the remix as music
Dub emerged in the early 1970s when Jamaican sound engineers — particularly King Tubby and Lee “Scratch” Perry — began remixing existing reggae tracks by stripping out vocals, dropping instruments in and out, adding reverb and echo, and treating the mixing desk as a compositional instrument. The results were radical: instrumental tracks that used space, echo, and bass as musical elements in ways pop had never done. Dub influenced punk (The Clash, The Slits), post-punk, ambient music, hip-hop production, and electronic dance music.
Dub radio stations play original dub records from the 1970s alongside modern dub and dubwise electronic music. The listening experience is physically immersive — much of dub’s impact depends on bass reproduction that earphones and laptop speakers cannot fully deliver.