It is common for reggae to be sung in Jamaican Patois, Jamaican English, and Iyaric dialects.

The guitar in reggae usually plays on the offbeat of the rhythm. The bass sound in reggae is thick and heavy, and equalized so the upper frequencies are removed and the lower frequencies emphasized. The bass guitar often plays the dominant role in reggae. Some key players in this sound are Jackie Jackson from Toots and the Maytals, Carlton Barrett from Bob Marley and the Wailers, Lloyd Brevett from the Skatalites, Paul Douglas from Toots and the Maytals, Lloyd Knibb from the Skatalites, Winston Grennan, Sly Dunbar, and Anthony 'Benbow' Creary from the Upsetters. The genre of reggae music is led by the drum and bass.

The concept of call and response can be found throughout reggae music. The tempo of reggae is usually slower paced than both ska and rocksteady. One of the most easily recognizable elements is offbeat rhythms staccato chords played by a guitar or piano (or both) on the offbeats of the measure. Stylistically, reggae incorporates some of the musical elements of rhythm and blues, jazz, mento (a celebratory, rural folk form that served its largely rural audience as dance music and an alternative to the hymns and adapted chanteys of local church singing), calypso, and also draws influence from traditional African folk rhythms. The musician becomes the messenger, and as Rastafari see it, 'the soldier and the musician are tools for change.' Reggae music is an important means of transporting vital messages of Rastafari. Soon after the Rastafarian movement appeared, the international popularity of reggae music became associated with and increased the visibility of Rastafari and spread its gospel throughout the world. Reggae is deeply linked to Rastafari, an Afrocentric religion which developed in Jamaica in the 1930s, aiming at promoting pan-Africanism. The immediate origins of reggae were in ska and rocksteady from the latter, reggae took over the use of the bass as a percussion instrument. It is instantly recognizable from the counterpoint between the bass and drum downbeat and the offbeat rhythm section. Reggae usually relates news, social gossip, and political commentary. While sometimes used in a broad sense to refer to most types of popular Jamaican dance music, the term reggae more properly denotes a particular music style that was strongly influenced by traditional mento as well as American jazz and rhythm and blues, and evolved out of the earlier genres ska and rocksteady. A 1968 single by Toots and the Maytals, ' Do the Reggay', was the first popular song to use the word reggae, effectively naming the genre and introducing it to a global audience.

The term also denotes the modern popular music of Jamaica and its diaspora. Reggae ( / ˈ r ɛ ɡ eɪ/) is a music genre that originated in Jamaica in the late 1960s.

List of gospel reggae riddims