should just add
this thread which should have been called "origins of the US duple rhythm" instead of "wow didn't know that".
to the naysayers, there are of course reasons why no significantly large body of modern music uses the 1-2, 1-2, kick on the 1 and snare right on the 2, "duple" rhythm, other than N.American music (and those it influenced, of which category reggae partially belongs), and the main one is undoubtedly the banning of the drums during the 17th Century.
also, i have, since posting that thread, consulted "card carrying" musicologists, such as Wayne "and Wax" Marshal, who attested to the thesis' basic soundness; as well as obtained from my friend the music documentary film maker Keith Jones, from whom i originally got a bit of this sitting in a bar in Prague one evening, the sources of his information - a main being the influential musicologist/composer
Ned Sublette.
and additional conversations with author, historian, and documentary film maker Darius James (United States of Hoodoo) has revealed more layers of information such as: due to the Catholic laws in Luisiana being somehow different from the protestant ones in Georgia and the Carolinas, where large slave plantations were, drums were NOT banned in New ORleans -- where jazz music was born, in the seedy bars and whore houses.
this from Keith Jones just now:
slave dances were openly allowed in Congo Square (in New Orleans) on Sundays until the 20th century
and as Ned is fond of pointing out, Jazz and Rock'n'roll were both born within one block of where Congo Square was
as the first Fats Domino and Little Richard records were made in the same street,
the first jazz record (1918) and the first Rock n roll records (1949) were made in the exact same vicinity, in this same Tremé district
and that is the main location where African cultures survived and mixed in North America, so it is no accident.
"In Louisiana's French and Spanish colonial era of the 18th century, slaves were commonly allowed Sundays off from their work. They were allowed to gather in the "Place de Negres", "Place Publique", later "Circus Square" or informally "Place Congo" [2] at the "back of town" (across Rampart Street from the French Quarter), where the slaves would set up a market, sing, dance, and play music."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congo_Square
and on Ned Sublette:
the best place to find info on the dessemination of drums and rhythms in his books is "A History of Cuba and its Music" but his new book is entirely on the history of the Slave Coast (as he calls the East Coast of US and stretching down to Caribbean) so I imagine there will be lots more in there... Also good is "The World That Made New Orleans" on the 18th century silver trade as an underpinning for slavery. and here is an interesting
historical monument.
so while the story is of course much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much more complex and nuanced than the 1 paragraph i had written in that thread and the couple of more here (for instance drums were also banned in places like Trinidad, by the British, much later in the 18th Century), the basic gist of it is sound: that this legacy of the banning of the drums was a major factor in shaping modern American music. It a matter of public and historical records, which interested parties can read much more about from the sources i cited above.