Early Jamaican
reggae 7" singles were usually recorded with the title track on one side, and an instrumental version on the other. This was oftern reffered to as the
dub or the
version.
One characterist of the history of Jamaican music has been a strong ethos to innovate and change. The practice grew up in sound systems to start playing the instrumetal track of popular singles, using a toaster to provide a different vocal track. One of the early pioneers of this was U-Roy.
Before long, legendary producer King Tubby had taken his experiments from his sound system back into the studio. There, he not only added a vocal track, but utlised his technical wizardry to change the dub platter. What we know know as Dub, first came into being.