Fifty years ago, Jamaica celebrated its independence. Around the same time, a teenage singer named Frederick “Toots” Hibbert who had left his hometown in the country formed The Maytals in Kingston.

The lineage of today’s chart-topping hip-hop and, earlier, the international reggae scene can be traced back to the sound system culture that blossomed in Jamaica during the 1950s, 60s and 70s and ...

Britain, the 1970s: skinheads rocked steady to ska and punks embraced reggae as their dance music of choice. Disaffected white youth across the UK embraced these Jamaican ghetto fables set to ...