Dancehall is the most potent form of popular culture in Jamaica

Dancehall is the most potent form of popular culture in Jamaica. It is a field of active cultural production, a means by which black lower class youth articulate and project a distinct identity in local, national, and global contexts; through dancehall, ghetto youth also attempt to deal with the endemic problems of poverty, racism, and violence. It is almost impossible to move though Jamaica’s urban and rural spaces without encountering dancehall in some form. Dancehall has received many blame for the decay in morality in Jamaica, and increased violence at large.

However things that are perceived as violent is not necessarily in the same context of the core participants hence, their belief that their lives are not any way different from other Jamaicans. Professor Cooper feels that the aim of the Deejays are to “ram” dancehall and “cork” party. In this research we will seek to highlight the effects of violence in the dancehall

1Dancehall operates as a site of revolution and transformation, effectively creating its own symbols and ideologies and negating, shifting, renewing and replacing those functioning in the traditional socio-political spaces.

Dancehall is the existential place or space within which one lives or exists. In this case, the dancehall provides a mirror of the lived realities of its effectors2 and affectees3 and acts as a social commentary on the negotiations and relationships within and even beyond the immediate space of dancehall. The interrogation of dancehall culture reveals that issues of identity and status plays a key role in dancehall culture and its symbiosis, ghetto culture.

Perhaps the human body is where the most significant symbols and practices of dancehall circulate. Through fashion, speech, and techniques of the body, ghetto youth mark their participation in dancehall and assert their control over the public space they occupy. Styles of clothing, haircuts, and jewelry worn to dancehall sessions have now become daily garb. These fashion statements are a source of ongoing controversy and they have come to signify a subordinate and oppositional position within Jamaica’s race-class hierarchy. Dancehall is also a center of profolic linguistic creativity.

Whether from fascination with cultural differences, or fear of its potential to incite rebellion, mobilize political sentiment, or question the moral order that underpins Jamaica’s social hierarchy, Jamaica’s middle and upper classes have always had to take notice of the dancehall. Dancehall has functioned as a space where the symbolic distinctions and the social divisions of race, class, gender, sexuality, religion, and political affiliation in Jamaican society are made, reinforced and undone. As such, dancehall is not only important to poor blacks but central to the society as a whole, because Jamaicans of all races and classes define themselves in relation to it. Additionally, dancehall is a symbol of pride in the ghetto, in and of African Culture and provides a medium through which the masses are able to ideologically challenge the hegemony of the ruling classes and state apparatuses. Dancehall is thus a marker of a charged cultural border between people of different races and class levels. The under-mentioned quote highlights a good perception of dancehall’s cultural power.

4Despite its seemingly contradictory elements, the idea that dancehall culture is powerful is widely shared in Jamaican Society, even by some of its fiercest critics. In a newspaper article, Why Dancehall Is Such Powerful Stuff, Jean Fairweather wrote in the Gleaner April 24, 1994: “For the first time Jamaican popular music far outweighs the combination of church, politics, and the educational system in power and influence”. Marjorie Stair wrote in the Gleaner April 30, 1994, “I came to appreciate the power of political and intellectual leadership in the 1970’s and 1980s. In the 1990s, the music and the media which now hold that power.”

As an alternative economy, dancehall is a means of survival, and as an alternative space, it is refuge. It is also the center of the ghetto youth’s life world; a place for enjoyment, cultural expression, creativity, and spiritual renewal hence, the dancehall is a communication center, a relay station, a site where black lower-class culture attains its deepest expression. Dancehall business is an important alternative economy. It provides access to jobs, such as promoters, deejays, managers, cassette freaks, peanut man (nutsie), jerk chicken man and the cane man and the opportunity to achieve relatively great success, and a means to sell one’s labour and products on the foreign market.

No country of comparable size to Jamaica has had the kind of musical influence globally that this island has. In fact, of the many countries in the world few have produced distinctive genres of music let alone export them successfully. Yet today, the name Bob Marley is recognized all over the world; indeed it is synonymous with Jamaica, or even better put the name precedes Jamaica.

Direct TV has recently added reggae to the categories of music to which it devotes specific channels – one of the finest and clearest tributes to reggae as a global musical brand. Jamaica reggae artiste Shaggy is today one of the most sought after pop artistes in the world, copping several awards than perhaps he himself can remember. However, how did this all started and what the story behind the music.

The musical history is a fascinating and rich one. Before reggae there was rocksteady and before that was the ska; before that was the blue beat and before that was the mento. Mento was the dominant music of Jamaica from its first appearance in the late 19th century up to the late 1930’s and was especially popular in rural areas.

One of the men who had the greatest influence on the direction of Jamaica music as a producer was Clement “Sir Soxsone” Dodd had real influence on the sound system business hence popular sound system operators in the early 50s like Duke “The Trojan” Reid, Prince Buster’s Voice of the People. These sound system played primarily in the inner-cities of the corporate area, particularly in Western Kingston.

The decline of R & B in the United States paved the way for original Jamaican recordings. Out of that came Ska, which still commands major attention. As one writer puts it “Ska is the no account stepfather of reggae.”

The emergence and rise to popularity of dancehall artistes out of the bowels of Kingston inner cities in the 1980s heralded a corresponding change in the country’s political culture with the apparent ideological merging of the Peoples National Party (PNP) and the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP). In an era of social, political and economic change, individuals were cut loose to seek their own space and create their own fortunes. With these transformations, the use of violence was again transformed. This change was influenced by the fascination of the ruling dancehall deejays with lyrical violence, violence against women, violence against self and society. One may argue that violence is purely lyrical, representing social commentary in the purest form with tenuous link to real violence in the society.

In my estimation, violence is both real and lyrical with the two being linked to the existing social, political and economic tensions in Jamaica. The linkage between real violence and lyrical violence is more evident in soci0-political and economic realities of the urban inner cities which are directly the creations of symbols and cultures which are the output of the dancehall. For example, “matey” wars, where women try to upstage each other for prime positions as “wifey” or woman.

Violent ruptures and outbursts in the dancehall place remain confined within the moment and among the actors of this space. From the clash of the sound systems to the class of the artistes versus artistes, or artistes versus audience, or audience versus artistes, the real violence is confined to this space. A fine example of this is the “passa passa” which existed between Capleton and Beenie Man. Until Sting 2002 Beenie Man and Capleton had not performed on stage for a while because of the differences that had existed at “Culturama” (stage show held in the United States) as a result of Beenie Man walking on stage while Capleton was performing. This later led to a confrontation at the Norman Manley Airport when Beenie Man was slapped in the face by persons who came to greet Capleton.

Today’s violence in the dancehall has deep rooted links to inner cities, poverty, political tribalism, drug culture, and culture of the gun. As these pressures hightended, the dancehall culture intensified. Deejays like Ninga Man known as the “gold teeth front teeth, gun pon front teeth don gorgan, and Supercat the “don dada” are linked to gun violence. Economic pressures increased access to illegal guns, increasing illegal drug trade, use and abuse of drugs influenced the influx of guns and violence. The movies, Dancehall Queen and Third World Cop and the Harder They Come are stark reminders of life in the inner cities and its linkages to dancehall.

Some Jamaicans believe that dancehall is a creeping ghetto culture that is taking over our society and has been contributing to our crime rate. Ghetto people were always viewed as criminals, hooligans, aggressors, and political terrorists. The artist Rodney Price known as “Bounti Killa”, the “war lord”, the “poor people’s govenor” has always been seen as one who is uncompromising, warlike and defiant in his lyrics. He too has had his share or violent interactions. He was sentenced to community service after using profanity. He was also implicated but later cleared after a verbal clash with Merciless and Beenie Man which ended in a bottle throwing incident at dancehall night at Reggae Sumfest. To add to this he is involved in legal wranglings in the United States with a promoter who sued him for failing to perform on a show.

Despite the foregoing, the issue however, includes poverty, lack of access to education, lack of jobs and poor social background, poor infrastructure, and lack of social mobility. Bounti’s song “Anytime” speaks to this issue. Lets look at an excerpt below: