Limited copies of the book available on my site and Amazon. If not, the ebooks will be there when they're gone. I've written about why they won't be on sale here.
If you haven’t read my book, it’s the first time dancehall has been explored and written in this way, threading popular riddims together into a coherent story. I explored the different elements and events that came together to build the music we know and love. It also acts as a social history of modern Jamaica because I believe popular music reflects something about society, whether it’s based on a person’s reality or aspirations, there’s a reason why people gravitate to it in significant numbers.
Back then the music was called reggae and it played in the dancehall. Over in England/London ragga is what we called the music now known as dancehall. The predominantly Rasta themed lyrics and live instruments had made way for the more rude boy and hot gal appealing digtial riddim driven music.
But in the 90s, all Jamaican music was created for sound systems to play in the dancehall. Whether it was slackness (gun, gal), culture (black empowerment, socially aware, Rasta) or lovers, they all thrived in the same environment, and often on the same riddim tracks. In Jamaica, the dancehalls were mainly outdoors, in the main diaspora communities they were indoors but the essence was the same whether yard or abroad. Oversized speaker boxes strung up together linked up to amps, a record player and a microphone played at high volume to an audience.
Beyond the music, a story unfolded without a script or intention. If it were a play, the actors were improvising with the limited tools in the venue and feeding off the crowd interaction. Word spread, people filmed it and began showing it on screens across the island before other people took it to places like London and New York, and from there it impacted the world. At the root, it was created instinctively by a relatively small community on a tiny island located in the Caribbean
In writing the book, I wanted to capture the story before it’s unable to be told. I traced back to the formative days in the 70s and 80s, where work by those expressing a slightly different interpretation of the island’s most popular produce (ska, rocksteady and reggae) that started in the 50s and 60s began gaining more prominence. Often operating in the fringes were deejays and singers in the dancehall rejected by the radios and from the studios, and going back before them to toasting and sound systems advertising establishments (markets, bars etc.), and encouraging punters to spend more money. Acceptance grew as younger generations looked for something new to shake up the status quo.
The 90s are arguably the last universally appreciated decade of Jamaican music. What grew from that movement was a globally recognised genre that is still popular and replicated across the world. Today you can still feel the influence in reggaeton, afrobeats, underground dance music to the pop charts.
p.s. I was regularly asked why I hadn't recorded a 90s dancehall takeover on en established radio show, which I always found weird. I understand it was with the best intentions, but I can only do what’s in my control. You’d have to ask them why they never asked or invited me. They know who I am, they have my book, but nothing came to be.
Big up Rodigan for shouting out my book, thanks to Sian Anderson for inviting me up to 1Xtra and thanks to the good people at NTS Radio for invite, patience, ‘cos they asked in 2022, and accommodation. (Proof here: https://www.instagram.com/nolongstories/)
I've now been a guest on 1Xtra, done a guest lecture at Goldsmiths University, done a guest speaker talk at We Out Here Festival, now a radio show. TV? We'll see. Maybe, but I think I've got a face for radio.
(And I said the wrong decade for something, but I left it in there because it’s ital. Not gonna lie, I knew it instantly, but whatever)
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