Reggae has become nowadays an important music matrix in the sonic landscapes of East Asia and South East Asia, being locally appropriated in various regional and cultural contexts.
Like for other main global music genres in the region, such as blues-rock, Latin or tango, reggae appears also fostered through the global radio waves and movie industries of the 20th century. However, reggae experiments a later diffusion and assimilation, mostly since the 1980’s and 90’s. Its local success seems to relate to the upraising ideas of supra-modernity, as neo-nativisms and the importance of local identities that spread at the end of the bipolar world. In fact, and as in other parts of the world during this period, reggae develops particularly among ethnically and geographically segregated social groups, in the periphery of the traditional national cultural spaces.
This study focuses on the contemporary prevalence of reggae through this vast and diverse geographical region. The contribution focuses comparatively on the diffusion, assimilation and practice of reggae music in the Nusantaran space (mainly Indonesia and Malaysia) and Taiwan, considering its diffusion particularly among Austronesian communities. In the first case, reggae is approached comparatively between the contexts of East Indonesia (Nusa Tenggara and Papua) and Sabah (Malaysian Borneo). Musical aspects, as the rhythmic after-beat compound, seem to relate reggae to local musical forms, such as Sabahan Kadazan Dusun’s sumazau, in Malaysia, or in Papuan and Flobamora Pop bands, in Indonesia. The second case approaches explicit forms of reggae developed in Taiwan among Austronesian musicians, such as Matzka, a Paiwan Taiwanese Pop music star that has developed an international career focusing mainly on local reggae music.
The study aims to contribute to the discussion about relation between Popular music and the ideas of flow (Hannerz), interculturality (Schippers), métissage (Gruzinski) and creolization (Glissant).