“Reggae, in my mind, developed out of an illusion.”

I’m fascinated by this bit from the documentary Marley:

At one point, Jamaican recording artist and reggae songwriter Bob Andy explains his theory on the precise origin of the reggae beat, the gentle chucka guitar riff lending Marley’s music its particular, seductive intoxication. Andy says the chucka (he calls it a shum sound) was an accident, an aural hiccup resulting from the recording tape delay. So the rhythmic trademark of reggae, he says, “developed out of an illusion.”

Even if it’s not true, I love the idea that hearing slap-back delay led guitar players to emulate that sound…

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