Reggae beats and 8bit bleeps

8bit computers and Reggae music may not sound like the most likely combination (unless you are a big fan of the Commodore 64 game Jammin), but Nicolas Nova, a lecturer at the Geneva University of Arts and Design certainly does. His new book ‘8-Bit Reggae: Collision and Creolization’ is “a book about the unexpected and intriguing culture collision between video game culture and reggae/dub.”

The book is available now and the official blurb can be read below. But first, here is an excellent example of the fusion of reggae beats and 8bit bleeps…

“8-Bit Reggae: Collision and Creolization (Nicolas Nova) is a book about the unexpected and intriguing culture collision between video game culture and reggae/dub. Why were 8-bit machines like the Commodore 64 or the Nintendo NES used to recreate Jamaicans riddims ? How did such a curious assemblage of rhythms, objects and game systems happen ? Was it because of the nature of the various sub-cultures ? Or was it just a fortuitous exchange between reggae music and 8-bit computing ? This book answers these questions and address the unlikely encounter of Jamaican music with the video game world.

Nicolas Nova is a researcher, ethnographer and co-founder of the Near Future Laboratory, and Professor at the Geneva University of Arts and Design (HEAD–Genève).”

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