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'Dancehall' is a type of Jamaican popular music which developed around the late 70's, with exponents such as Yellowman and Shabba Ranks. It is also known as 'bashment'.
The style is characterized by a deejay singing and rapping or toasting over raw and danceable music riddims. The rhythm in dancehall is much faster than in reggae, sometimes with drum machines replacing acoustic sets. It may be the predecessor of Hip-Hop. In the early years of dancehall, some found its lyrics crude and bawdy ("slack"), particularly because of its sexual tones, popular among youths in Jamaica. Like its reggae predecessor it eventually made inroads onto the world music scene.
This deejay-led, largely synthesized chanting with musical accompaniment departed from traditional conceptions of Jamaican popular musical entertainment. Dub poet Mutabaruka maintained, "if 1970s reggae was red, green and gold, then in the next decade it was gold chains". It was far removed from its gentle roots and culture, and there was furious debate among purists as to whether it ought to be considered some sort of extension of reggae music.^[1]

Contents

History

Major artists/milestones

The culture of dancehall

Homophobia in dancehall music

Dancehall dances

References

History

Dancehall, the musical genre, is long considered to be the creation of Henry "Junjo" Lawes in 1979 and further refined by King Jammy in the early 80's during their transition from dub to dancehall and original attempts to digitize "hooks" to "toast" over by Jamaican deejays.
King Jammy's 1985 hit, "(Under Me) Sleng Teng" by Wayne Smith, with an entirely-digital rhythm hook took the dancehall reggae world by storm. Many credit this song as being the first "Digital rhythm" in reggae, leading to the modern dancehall era.^[2]
[3] However this is not entirely correct since there are earlier examples of digital productions; Horace Fergusons single "Sensi Addict" (Ujama) produced by Prince Jazzbo in 1984 is one.

Major artists/milestones

Dancehall emerged in the 1980s, most of the creative output can be credited to studio musicians Steely & Clevie along with the handful of producers they collaborated with. They created the music for many of the riddims that the genre was based on. The decade saw the arrival of a new generation of deejays, most distinct were the harder edged, such as Ninjaman, Flourgon, General Trees, Tiger, Admiral Bailey, Supercat, Yellowman, Tenor Saw, Shelly Thunder, Reggie Stepper, Shabba Ranks, Johnny P, Peter Metro, and Papa San to name a few. To complement their sound, a "Sweet Sing" vocal style evolved out of roots reggae and R&B, marked by its falsetto and almost feminine intonation, with proponents like Pinchers, Cocoa Tea, Sanchez, Conroy Smith, Courtney Melody, Carl Meeks, and Barrington Levy. It is important to note that a lot of established reggae singers like Gregory Isaacs, Militant Barry, Johnny Osbourne and U-Roy transitioned into dancehall.
In the early 90s, songs like Dawn Penn's "No, No, No", Shabba Ranks "Mr. Loverman", and Chaka Demus and Pliers' "Murder She Wrote" became some of the first dancehall megahits in the U.S. and abroad. Various other varieties of dancehall achieved crossover success outside of Jamaica during the mid-to-late 1990s. Tanya Stephens gave a unique female voice to the genre in the 90s.
1990-1994 saw the entry of artists like Buju Banton, Bounty Killer, Shaggy, Spragga Benz, Capleton, and Beenie Man and a major shift in the sound of Dancehall, brought on by the introduction of a new generation of producers and for better or for worse, the end of Steely & Clevie's stranglehold on riddim production.
In the late 1990s, many practitioners like Buju Banton and Capleton returned to the Rastafari movement and changed their lyrical focus to "consciousness", a reflection of the spiritual underpinnings of Rastafari.
The early 2000s saw the success of newer charting acts such as Elephant Man and Sean Paul.
Currently, Sean Paul has achieved mainstream success within the United States and has produced several Top 10 Billboard hits, including "We Be Burnin'", "Get Busy", "Temperature" and the 2006 single "Give It Up To Me".
VP Records dominates the dancehall music market with Sean Paul, Elephant Man, and Buju Banton.^[4] VP often has partnered with major record labels like Atlantic and Island in an attempt to further expand their distribution potential particularly in the U.S. market.

The culture of dancehall

Dancehall owes its name to the space in which recorded popular Jamaican music was consumed and produced by the DJ. Dancehall is not just recorded speech with musical accompaniment therefore, but a space as well as an institution or culture in which music, dance and community vibes merge.
Dancehall also developed in Jamaica as a result of varying political and socio-economic factors. Reggae as a style of music was heavily influenced by the ideologies of Rastafari and was also spirited by the socialist movements in the island at the time. Dancehall, the evolution of reggae, was birthed in the late seventies and early eighties. This is when many had become disenchanted with the socialist movement and the harsh economic realities that it brought to bear on the island. It is during this time that neo-liberalist ideologies and materialism started to factor into the lives of many Jamaicans, and into the new entertainment form.
Dancehall lyrics have been criticized by pockets of Jamaican society with little or no state endorsement. Dancehall has also come to face scathing criticism from the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender community, as they claim that it perpetuates violence against GLBT people in Jamaica.
Dancehall is just short of being a movement, but does have the characteristics of a cosmology as it is a culture and a lens through which people see the world. This cosmology and cultural phenomenon carries with it a linguistic component. Terms such as "bun" in the Dancehall, which is Patois for "burn", do not carry with them a very literal understanding as it may in European cultures. Hence, phrases like "bun sodomites" will not mean, to literally burn sodomites, but function more as a line of dissent: it is an exaggeration used to indicate serious disapproval.
Dancehall is more than a place it is a culture and a space. Culture is the way of life of a group of people. This includes what they wear, how they govern themselves, their religious belief and other rituals. Dancehall is an integral part of the Jamaican life. Dancehall as a culture and concept has a much longer history than that. Dancehall is also the space where dances are held and where sound systems and artists performed long before the technological innovations of the dancehall music we hear today. Moreover, like hip hop, dancehall refers not only to a music and a space, but to a whole culture that encompasses music, language, dance, dress, and world views. Even as it is transformed it transforms personal and communal spaces. Most importantly the limits and potential of such performance spaces as Dancehall are revealed in the way they are negotiated within the urban and temporary spaces to create change in composition and ones not in accordance with nature.

Homophobia in dancehall music

Dancehall music has come under increased criticism from Jamaican and international organizations and Jamaican journalists, like Ian Boyne,^[5] for homophobic lyrics. Such lyrics have been described by J-FLAG, a Jamaican gay rights organization, as one aspect of "widespread Jamaican cultural bias against homosexuals and bisexuals". A Human Rights Watch report has also outlined the widespread existence of homophobia in Jamaica.^[6] Homosexual activity is still illegal in Jamaica, as it is in most former British colonies in the Caribbean (see LGBT rights in Jamaica).
In some cases, dancehall artists whose music features homophobic lyrics have had their concerts cancelled. Various singers have had international travel restrictions placed on them, and have been investigated by international law enforcement agencies such as Scotland Yard on the grounds that the lyrics incite the audience to assault homosexuals. In 2003, the British LGBT rights group OutRage! called for the arrest of Elephant Man for inciting the killing of gay men in his song lyrics. However, he was not arrested.^[7] Many of the affected singers believe that such legal or commercial sanctions are essentially an attack against freedom of speech.^[8]

Dancehall dances

Dancehall has energised Jamaican popular music because it has spawned dance moves that help to make parties and stage performances more energetic. Many dance moves seen on hip-hop videos are actually variations of dancehall moves such as the popular Butterfly, The Bogle, The Heel and Toe, The Blazay-Blazay, The Pon the River, Pon the Bank, the jook, and the dutty wine. Visit Realvibez.com[1] for the largest collection of dancehall music videos.

References

1. http://niceup.com/history/bbc/dancehall.html
2. http://www.reggaezine.co.uk/slengteng.html
3. http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=10:wjfqxqqaldhe
4. http://www.jamaica-gleaner.com/gleaner/20010518/show/show1.html
5. http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/columns/html/20041121T020000-0500_69949_OBS_DANCEHALL__IAN_BOYNE_AND_VIOLENCE.asp
6. http://hrw.org/reports/2004/jamaica1104/
7. http://www.365gay.com/NewsContent/091703tatchellRap.htm
8. http://www.villagevoice.com/music/0507,oumano,61118,22.html


★ Caribbean Currents: Caribbean Music from Rumba to Reggae (2nd edition). Temple University Press, 2006, Manuel, Peter, with Kenneth Bilby and Michael Largey, , , , , ISBN 1-59213-463-7

★ White, G. (1984). “The Development of Jamaican Popular Music, Part 2. Urbanization of the Folk, the merger of traditional and the popular in Jamaican Music, ACIJ Research Review, No. 1., The African-Caribbean Institute of Jamaica

★ Stanley Niaah, S. (2004). “Kingston’s Dancehall: A Story of Space and Celebration”, in Space and Culture, 7:1, pp. 102-118

★ Stewart, K. (2002). “`So wha, mi nuh fi live to’: Interpreting violence in Jamaica through the Dancehall Culture” in Ideaz, 1 : 1, pp. 17-28

★ Stolzoff, Norman C.: ''Wake the Town and Tell the People: Dancehall Culture in Jamaica''. Durham, London: Duke University Press 2000. ISBN 0823245144 (hardcover)

★ Sunday Observer: Vol. 10, No. 49: Sunday November 21, 2004. [2]

★ X-news: November

★ Franco Pencle (St. Catherine High School)

★ Realvibez.com Dancehall Music Videos