Tie-in for the film, The king of the dancehall.

The definitive study and essential guide to Jamaican Dancehall in the 1980s. Dancehall is at the centre of Jamaican musical and cultural life. From its roots in Kingston in the 1950s to its heyday in the 1980s, Dancehall has conquered the globe also spreading to the USA, UK, Canada, Japan, Europe and beyond. This definitive study and essential guide to Jamaican Dancehall in the 1980s features hundreds of exclusive photographs with accompanying text, interviews and biographies. This book captures a previously unseen era of musical culture fashion and lifestyle. With unprecedented access to the incredibly vibrant music scene during this period, Beth Lesser's photographs are a unique way in to a previously hidden part of Jamaican culture.

An ethnography of Dancehall, the dominant form of reggae music in Jamica since the early 1960s.

During the 1980s Wilfred Limonious (1949--99) became one of Jamaican music's most prolific graphic artists, designing countless reggae album jackets and record-label logos. With silly characters, scribbled commentary and outrageous Patois-filled speech bubbles, the world he created was the perfect visual counterpart to the island's emerging dancehall scene.

This work provides an accessible account of a poorly understood aspect of Jamaican popular culture. It explores the socio-political meanings of Jamaica's dancehall culture. In particular, the book gives an account of the power relations within the dancehall and between the dancehall and the wider Jamaican society. Hope gives the reader an unmatched insider's view and explanation of power, violence and gender relations in Jamaica as seen through the prism of the dancehall.

This history of reggae music covers from the Jamaican R and B and Calypso of the post-war years, to the surge of interest in the 1990s. As well as tracing the musical history, this book explains the historical and social background which are crucial to the understanding of its development. There are four main centres, in chronological order - Jamaica, London, New York and Toronto.

Reggae Soundsystem is a new deluxe 200 page hard-back 12"x12" book featuring hundreds of stunning full size record cover designs that span the history of reggae music. The book is compiled by the celebrated author and reggae expert Steve Barrow (Rough Guide to Reggae/ Blood and Fire Records) and Stuart Baker (Soul Jazz Records). Beginning in the 1950s, Jamaican music developed into one of the most important and influential music industries in the world. From its early Mento (Jamaican Calypso) beginnings through to the invention of Ska, Rocksteady, Roots, Dub and Dancehall, Jamaican music is also one of the richest and innovative veins in popular music. This stunning hardback deluxe book is a timely look at the endless visually creativity of reggae record cover designs, iconic, classic, rare and unique artwork spanning sixty years of Jamaican sounds. The book includes a fascinating introductory essay on the history of reggae by Steve Barrow and the book is edited by Stuart Baker (founder of Soul Jazz Records and editor of the book Dancehall, and cover art books on Bossa Nova, Freedom, Rhythm & Sound and Studio One Records).

DanceHall combines cultural geography, performance studies and cultural studies to examine performance culture across the Black Atlantic. Taking Jamaican dancehall music as its prime example, DanceHall reveals a complex web of cultural practices, politics, rituals, philosophies, and survival strategies that link Caribbean, African and African diasporic performance. Combining the rhythms of reggae, digital sounds and rapid-fire DJ lyrics, dancehall music was popularized in Jamaica during the later part of the last century by artists such as Shabba Ranks, Shaggy, Beenie Man and Buju Banton. Even as its popularity grows around the world, a detailed understanding of dancehall performance space, lifestyle and meanings is missing. Author Sonjah Stanley Niaah relates how dancehall emerged from the marginalized youth culture of Kingston’s ghettos and how it remains inextricably linked to the ghetto, giving its performance culture and spaces a distinct identity. She reveals how dancehall’s migratory networks, embodied practice, institutional frameworks, and ritual practices link it to other musical styles, such as American blues, South African kwaito, and Latin American reggaetòn. She shows that dancehall is part of a legacy that reaches from the dance shrubs of West Indian plantations and the early negro churches, to the taxi-dance halls of Chicago and the ballrooms of Manhattan. Indeed, DanceHall stretches across the whole of the Black Atlantic’s geography and history to produce its detailed portrait of dancehall in its local, regional, and transnational performance spaces.

"In Jamaica, dancehall music and culture has become perhaps the most prominent expression of Jamaican popular culture. Taking its name from dance halls in which popular local recordings were played by sound systems, the concept of Dancehall as a cultural space has rapidly gained momentum in the last three decades as deejay stars enjoy unprecedented successes locally and internationally. Donna Hope builds on her earlier work on popular culture and theories of sexuality/gender to examine the process and progress of Jamaican masculinities. Man Vibes: Masculinities in Jamaican Dancehall explores Jamaican masculinity through the male-dominated dancehall space that is at once a celebration of the marginalized poor and also a challenge to social inequality. Using the major masculine debates that are articulated in dancehall music and culture, Hope explores the transition of Jamaican masculinity in the 21st century. The dancehall representations of Ole Dawg (promiscuity), Badman (violence), Chi Chi Man (anti-male homosexuality), Bling Bling (consumerist/consumptive) and Fashion Ova Style (stylized transgressions and homosexuality) are all used to evaluate the relationship between dancehall culture and the hegemonic standard of masculine. Man Vibes significantly advances the Cultural Studies agenda and acts as a contemporary reader by speaking not only to dancehall music and culture s masculinities but to Jamaican and Black masculinities in general. "