More than any genre other than perhaps jazz, reggae has relied upon the cover version as a crucial component of its development, so much so that the very term "version" was long ago adopted as part of reggae's common musical parlance.

This was in large part due to the colossal power of the radio transmitters used by radio stations in New Orleans and Memphis, which enabled Jamaican musicians to hear, and devise their own makeovers, of American R&B hits.