Records that mark the turns

"Easy Snappin'," recorded by Theophilus Beckford around 1959, is frequently cited by historians as a transitional record between Jamaican R&B/shuffle and the ska sound that would emerge within a year or two - one of the clearest audible steps in ska's formation.

"Do the Reggay," recorded by Toots and the Maytals in 1968, is widely credited as the first song to use the word "reggae" in a title - lending its name, within a couple of years, to the entire genre that grew out of rocksteady.

"Get Busy" by Sean Paul is the Diwali riddim's biggest international breakthrough, a dancehall single whose Billboard success made Lenky's rhythm and Jamaican deejay delivery part of early-2000s global pop radio.

"Simmer Down," recorded at Studio One in 1963-64, was the Wailers' debut single and a number-one Jamaican hit - the record that established Bob Marley, Peter Tosh and Bunny Wailer as a serious commercial act years before international fame, cut with the same Studio One session musicians who would later become the Skatalites.

"Under Mi Sleng Teng," Wayne Smith's 1985 recording produced by King Jammy over a Casio MT-40 preset riddim, is widely credited as the record that pushed Jamaican music from live-band production to computerized digital riddims almost overnight, spawning close to 500 different versions.

"Murder She Wrote" by Chaka Demus & Pliers is a 1990s dancehall hit that became one of the genre's most durable global reference points, moving through radio, clubs, samples, DJ sets and later streaming-era rediscovery.

"Exodus," Bob Marley & the Wailers' 1977 Island Records album, was recorded partly in London after an assassination attempt on Marley in Jamaica and became one of reggae's most globally successful records - Time magazine later named it the best album of the 20th century.

"Oh Carolina," recorded by the Folkes Brothers in 1960 and produced by Prince Buster, is built on Count Ossie's Nyabinghi drumming - a rare case of Rastafari ceremonial drums appearing directly on a commercial Jamaican pop record, years before that influence became widely recognized in reggae history.

"007 (Shanty Town)," Desmond Dekker & the Aces' 1967 rocksteady hit, drew directly on "rude boy" street culture and gang imagery, helping establish the rude-boy narrative as a recurring theme in Jamaican pop reaching international audiences.

A mid-1960s moral panic over Kingston's rudies played out, verse by verse, on record.

One rhythm can hold dozens of performances, arguments, jokes, hits and local memories.

How a preset rhythm on a consumer keyboard turned Jamaica's oldest studio economy into the digital age.

Rastafari drumming came down from the Wareika Hills and onto record while colonial-era radio kept its distance.