Pacific reggae is the body of roots reggae and reggae-pop made by New Zealand and Pasifika communities (Samoan, Tongan, Cook Islander, Niuean, Fijian, and Māori) since the 1979 Auckland formation of Herbs. The direct musical ancestor is 1970s Jamaican roots reggae — Marley, Culture, Burning Spear — but transplanted into a Pacific context that adds dense Pasifika choral harmony, Māori and Samoan phrasing, and imagery of island life. The line-up is typically two guitars, bass, drums, keyboards, horns, and multi-part vocal harmonies. Katchafire keeps the one-drop reggae discipline strict; Six60 pushes toward R&B and pop.

Herbs formed in Auckland in 1979 with Samoan, Cook Islander, and Māori members. Their 1981 single 'French Letter,' protesting French nuclear testing at Moruroa Atoll, was sung across the whole South Pacific. Their political core came directly out of the Dawn Raids period (1974–76), when New Zealand police conducted night home raids on Pasifika families, and the civil-rights movement that followed. Hamilton's Katchafire (formed 1997, centred on the Māori Rawiri family) held to strict roots-reggae fundamentalism from 2003's Revival onward. Six60 formed in 2008 from a University of Otago student flat at 660 Castle Street.

On Herbs' 'French Letter' the striking feature is the density of the harmony vocals — five or six singers in parallel harmony rather than the isolated lead-vocal-plus-backing model that Marley used. That harmony pattern is directly imported from Pasifika choral tradition. On Six60's 'Rise' the Māori-language phrasing sits inside R&B production, which is how 2010s NZ Pasifika reggae sits between reggae and pop. Katchafire's 'Get Away' shows a shuffle drum feel and bassline that would sound at home on a Kingston recording — the fidelity to the Jamaican original is deliberate.

Herbs 'French Letter' (1981) for the origin. Katchafire 'Get Away' (2003) for the roots-reggae discipline. Six60 'Rise' (2019) for the current Pasifika R&B-reggae hybrid. Bright afternoon or a coastal evening are the right frames.

Six60 sold out Auckland's Eden Park stadium — 40,000 seats — in 2019, the largest single-artist concert in New Zealand history. The venue is normally an All Blacks rugby ground. The band name is the address of the University of Otago student flat at 660 Castle Street where they formed. Herbs' 'French Letter' predates the July 1985 French intelligence bombing of the Rainbow Warrior in Auckland harbour by four years, and was later re-read as prescient of that event.