That cross-stick will come on the “and” of beat four, but it’s going to sound better if you play it with a swing feel. It’s the same one drop beat, but you’re going to add an extra cross-stick to give it a bouncier feel. This next groove follows off the back of the last one. Work on playing this groove at various tempos, as some reggae tunes have it quite slow while others are a lot faster. You should then play the hi-hats on beats two and four a bit louder to get a nice offbeat feel. You can do that by playing a cross-stick on the snare drum and a note on the bass drum at the same time. The idea behind the groove is that you need to accent beat three of the bar. If you’ve never played reggae beats before, this may feel a bit weird, as the bass drum is falling on a count that it wouldn’t typically fall on in pop music or rock music. It’s the most common pattern that you need to play in reggae music, as most tunes have this rhythm engrained in them. This first groove is called a one drop reggae beat.
