By Jonathan Anthony Burkett
Every time you hear a remix, an extended club version or a track where the beat drops out and echoes into space, you are hearing an idea that grew up in Jamaican recording studios. That idea is dub. It began as a way to make B-sides and turned into one of the most influential approaches to music ever developed. Here is what dub is, how it works and why it still matters.
What dub actually is
Dub is a style of reggae built by remixing an existing recording. The engineer takes a song's multitrack tape, strips away most of the vocals and rebuilds the track around the drums and bass. Then they shape it in real time with effects, letting instruments drop in and out, adding heavy echo and reverb, and turning the song into something spacious and hypnotic.
The key shift is this: in dub, the mixing desk itself becomes an instrument. The engineer is not just balancing levels. They are performing, and every mix can be different.
Where it came from
Dub grew out of the "version." In Jamaica, singles often had an instrumental version of the A-side on the flip. Sound system deejays used those versions to toast over, and selectors loved them because they let a popular rhythm play on and on.
By the late 1960s and early 1970s, engineers started getting more adventurous with those versions. Instead of simply removing the vocal, they began dropping instruments in and out, adding echo and building tension and release. Audiences loved it, and dub became a style in its own right.
The pioneers
A handful of names come up again and again in dub history:
- King Tubby, born Osbourne Ruddock, an electronics expert from Kingston whose small studio became a laboratory for dub. He is often called the genre's founding father.
- Lee "Scratch" Perry, the visionary producer behind the Black Ark studio, known for strange, layered and deeply experimental sounds.
- Errol Thompson, an engineer who helped shape early dub records.
- Scientist and Prince Jammy (later King Jammy), both of whom learned under King Tubby and carried dub forward.
- Augustus Pablo, whose haunting melodica playing gave many dub tracks their signature mood.
The tools and techniques
Part of dub's magic is that it was often made with modest equipment pushed to its limits. Some of its signature moves include:
Drop-outs. Pulling instruments out of the mix, sometimes leaving just bass, or just drums, before slamming everything back in.
Echo and delay. Repeating a snare hit, a guitar chop or a fragment of vocal until it trails away.
Reverb. Making sounds feel huge and distant, as if played in a cave or a cathedral.
Bass weight. Keeping the low end deep and dominant, built for big sound system speakers.
Together, these tools turn a familiar song into a journey. You hear the same rhythm, but you experience it in a completely new way.
From dub to the modern remix
Dub's influence spread far beyond Jamaica. The idea that a recording is raw material to be reshaped, rather than a finished object, now runs through almost every kind of modern music.
Jamaican sound system culture helped shape early hip hop. Dub's emphasis on bass and space echoes through UK genres like jungle, drum and bass and dubstep, which even carries the name. Club remixes, extended versions and instrumentals in dance music all owe something to dub's way of thinking. Whenever a producer strips a track back to its groove and rebuilds it for a different setting, they are working in the spirit of King Tubby's studio.
You can hear that tradition in Jonathan Anthony Burkett's One Life, his signature song featuring reggae artist Ambelique. In May 2019, Upstormed Records released a remix EP of the song that includes a Dub Mix alongside a Club Mix, a Festival Mix, a Cut Mix and instrumental versions. I Am Hip-Hop Magazine covered the EP in August 2019, noting how the title track was reworked in dub, EDM and techno/house remixes.
Listening to those versions side by side is a great way to understand dub thinking: one song, one message, reshaped for different moods and different rooms.
How to listen to dub
Dub rewards patient, focused listening. Use good headphones or speakers with real bass, turn it up a little and let the space in the music do its work. Listen for what disappears as much as what plays, and notice how the echoes create rhythm of their own.
Then try a comparison. Play the original One Life and follow it with the Dub Mix on Spotify. Hearing how one song transforms is the quickest way to understand why dub changed music, and you can find every release on the Music page.
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