Dancehall History

Once despised and ridiculed by the American music industry, dancehall is beginning to take its rightful place as one of the premier genres in black urban music today. The rambunctious child of Jamaica, and older sister of hip-hop music, has always had a strong following in the Caribbean, Africa, Japan, Europe and parts of South America. Still, its influence has never been as strongly felt in the United States as it currently is today.

How else can one explain the Dirty South’s stranglehold on the rap music industry over the last couple of years? Isn’t Lil’ Jon’s “crunk” music and Nelly’s melodic rhyme style just an American rendition of what guys like Beenie Man and Bounty Killer have been doing for the last 13 years? In both cases, the emphasis is placed on flow and passionate delivery in contrast to the cerebral wordplay that has come to define New York’s urban music scene since the days of Kool G. Rap and Rakim.

Back in the early-to-mid ’90s, any dancehall junkie who criss-crossed the radio dial in search of the latest tunes from Shabba, Super Cat or Ninja Man on a major FM station had to wait until Saturday night when DJ Red Alert manned the ones and twos on 98.7 KISS. If that didn’t quell their addiction they could catch Bobby Konders and Jabba who dished the goods, as they still do, every Sunday evening over at HOT 97 FM. These days however, artists like Elephant Man, Sean Paul and Lady Saw can be heard on major urban networks while you’re having your lunch break on Tuesday, or just waking up from that nasty hangover on a Sunday afternoon.

For those who do not realize what this shift in radio programming implies, allow WhereItzAt to cut to the chase and lay it down in layman’s terms: dancehall is slowly, but surely, going mainstream to blow wow! But only those who have had an ongoing love affair with this sexy island gyal can appreciate the commercial success she has enjoyed over the last two years.

As I think about my earliest exposure to dancehall as a child of the 1980s, a panorama of provocative images flashes across the magic mirror of my mind: I see Ronald Reagan in my magic mirror. I see shinny Nissan Maximas with gold-plated rims; four-finger rings; Garbage Pail Kids; Aqueduct Park; Basil’s house; U-Roy; Super Power Records; Hulk Hogan; Apache’s Restaurant; Roland Alfonso; Thundercats; “The Mall” on Church Avenue and that nasty bruck foot, big batty, dutty gyal I used to see down at Rockaway Beach. Hehhhh!!! Mi ah tell yuh!

Although these images marked the genesis of dancehall music for me, its origin precedes that decade of decadence commonly known as the 1980s. Oh, yes. The feel-good vibes of the dancehall can be traced to the raucous backyard bashes on the island of Jamaica—the same ones that captured the young imagination of the father of hip-hop, DJ Kool Herc in the late 1960s.

In those days Ewert Beckford, better known as sweet daddy U-Roy, rocked parties from parish-to-parish with King Tubby’s sound system. As word of the Jones Town native’s rhyme skills spread throughout the land, he and John Holt combined to “Wake the Town” with hits like “Wear You to the Ball.” This festive atmosphere gave rise to the world famous Stone Love International sound system in 1972. The 32-year-old sound system helped birth the careers of some of dancehall’s most celebrated artists, including Tiger, Buju Banton, and the Fire Man himself, Capleton. While King Addies, Body Guard, Metro Media, and Jam Roc later carried the torch of dancehall here in New York City, Stone Love was the first sound system to establish itself as a viable corporate entity.“A lot of people don’t understand that the sound system is not just a bunch of guys playing the latest music,” says Byron “Father Barney” Dudley, official spokesperson for Stone Love during a recent telephone interview. “It is an institution that has helped to sustain ghetto people. The Jamaican government has never really taken into consideration the economic value of the sound systems in the dancehall. Merchants gather around the sound systems to sell their food, drinks and cigarettes. This has enabled them to send their children to school and put food on the table. Plus many music careers were established all because of these sound systems.” As dancehall continued to rise from the fertile soil of reggae, a flood of young, sharp-witted deejays arrived on the scene to power the music forward. Among them was I-Roy, Dennis Al Capone, Dillinger and Big Youth, to name a few.

What is perhaps most revealing when one examines the names of some of dancehall’s earliest deejays, is the artists’ identification with the violent gangster culture popularized by Hollywood films. When most hip-hop historians are asked where this fascination in contemporary urban American music comes from they are likely to point to NWA’s debut album N.W.A and the Posse (Priority, 1987), Boogie Down Production’s Criminal Minded (Landspeed, 1987) or Schooly D’s Saturday Night! (Jive,1987).

However, the influence of Jamaican gangsters and hustlers on African Americans migrating from the rural south to major urban centers in the United States at the dawn of the 20th century cannot be overlooked. After all, it was the Jamaican number runner, West Indian Archie, who taught resident Harlemite Malcolm X (the son of a Grenadian mother and Georgian father) the darker aspects of human psychology.

But much like its younger sister, hip-hop, dancehall was not originally built on menacing melodies and rudeboy tough talk. It was predicated on the happy-go-lucky themes of love, peace, and happiness. “If you were a poor man who didn’t bring home much money after work you could go to the dance and hear some music that would soothe your soul,” Father Barney explains. “Instead of going home to take your frustration out on your wife and kids you could go to the dance hall, have a drink, and hear two good tunes.”

Still, no cultural revolution can be fully understood without examining the political forces that shaped and molded it into being. When Jamaica adopted a socialist style of government under the helm of Prime Minister Michael Manley (People’s National Party) during the 1970s, the economy took a deep plunge into the smoldering abyss of hell. This was mainly because the United States—then engaged in a bitter Cold War with communist Russia—began to cut financial aid to the defiant island (not unlike President George W. Bush did to low income college students just before the close of 2004). Social tensions skyrocketed as Jamaica’s poor ghetto dwellers had to fend for themselves beneath an emasculated government too impotent to relieve them of their misery and despair. There was no welfare office to run to on the dirt-paved streets of Trenchtown, Kingston.

As a result, hardened Jamaican gangsters such as the Edward Seaga (Jamaica Labor Party) affiliated Claude Masop, and Manley protégé Toney “Tek Life” Welch, popped up on the scene to take matters into their own hands. Although those men led violent lives, no critical observer would confuse them with today’s metro-sexual thug, slavishly entranced by the bling and booty of rap videos broadcasted daily on B.E.T. Masop and Welch were not rebels without a cause. They were revolutionary, but gangsta, gangsta revolutionaries who served and protected their respective communities—against all odds.

Following Seaga’s bloody victory in the national election of 1980, Jamaica was in the good graces of the United States once again. At the behest of the IMF and World Bank it was forced to undergo a total restructuring of its economy. The King of Reggae, Bob Marley, died a year later on May 11, 1981. The resounding words of Rastafari were silenced for a time.Drugs flooded the tiny island of Jamaica as the Babylonian gospels of crime, vice and debauchery reigned supreme. It was in this atmosphere Wayne Smith released the classic “Under Me Sleng Teng” in 1985. “Dancehall artists are news reporters, so whatever is going on in Jamaica, the artists are going to let you know without sugarcoating anything,” says DJ Gringo of Sirius Satellite Radio. Smith’s vocals were laid over the deviously hypnotic drone that so fittingly characterizes the sleng teng riddim. The track can also be heard on Johnny Osbourne’s “Budy Bye” and a string of other sound-a-likes that were released in the mid ’80s.

During this era in dancehall, innovative producers such as Linval Thompson, Lincoln “Sugar” Minott and Henry “Junjo” Lawes rose to fame and prominence. Lawes was the producer most responsible for the stellar careers of Barrington Levy, Eek-A-Mouse, Yellowman and the outlaw Josey Wales.

Thanks to www.whereitzatlive.com