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.
