Riddim
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In
Since the 1970s, riddims have accompanied reggae music and through the 1980s, more widely known as dancehall. As seen in dancehall music, there is a voicing part – sung by the DJ – over some riddim that has probably been widely used in many other songs. There is a unique establishment in the combination of riddims and voicing.
By 1993, Jamaica finally established a copyright act, but producers still face difficulty in establishing profit. Through proper registration, many artists now work on negotiating their royalties and taking it more seriously. The unique nature of dancehall and riddims have been highly influential on the numerous remixes that now circulate throughout R&B and hip-hop music.
Definition
Some classic riddims, such as "Nanny Goat" and "Real Rock" both produced by
"Riddims are the primary musical building blocks of Jamaican popular songs.... At any given time, ten to fifteen riddims are widely used in dancehall recordings, but only two or three of these are the now ting (i.e., the latest riddims that everyone must record over if they want to get them played in the dance or on radio).... In dancehall performing, those whose timing is right on top of the rhythm are said to be riding di riddim.[2]
Bass culture
The bass culture of Jamaican sonic sensibilities is characterized with less emphasis on melody and large emphasis on the drum beats and low frequency bass vibrations to draw attention to the social grounding to the culture. These aspects of Jamaican music are expressed visually through the Dancehall choreography and its African inspired folk traditions, which emphasize earthly connection through flat-footed stamping and “bumper-grinding sexually explicit choreography, where the bass note is struck by the body itself—displaying its fecundity and celebrating its fertility”.[3] This bass culture is also embodied sonically by the music's heartbeat, the bass lines often described as riddims, produced in the late 1960s and early 1970s. These riddims offer a sonic foundation on top of which different other sounds are incorporated to form innumerable versions.
Usage
Riddims are the instrumental background (the rhythm section) of reggae, lovers rock, dub, ragga, dancehall, soca, bouyon, Sega and also reggaeton, which itself is largely based on the Dem Bow and Fish Market riddims by Steely & Clevie from the early 1990s.
In other musical contexts, a riddim would be called a
Whilst mainly reggae-based music, an emerging electronic music genre as a sub-genre of
Types
African in origin (see
A number of riddims take their name and influence from African-Jamaican religious drumming such as the Kumina riddim, created in 2002 by Sly and Robbie, and Burru.[5]
Producers
Different producers often develop their own versions of the same riddim, such as the Punanny riddim, which has distinct versions crafted by
See also
References
- ISBN 0-262-01347-9; and Manuel, Peter, and Wayne Marshall (2006). "The Riddim Method: Aesthetics, Practice, and Ownership in Jamaican Dancehall," in Popular Music 25(3), pp. 447-70.
- ISBN 0-8223-2514-4.
- S2CID 14966354.
- ISBN 0-9673098-4-0.
- ISBN 9781441132253.