L IT'S THURSDAY-DANCEHALL NIGHT-AT ASYLUM, KINGSTON'S hottest nightclub.1 Knutsford Street in glitzy New Kingston has been crowded from early in the night with the club's bouncers and staff, vendors selling jerk chicken, fish soup, cigarettes, and chewing gum, and general onlookers. As the song says, however, "...it begins to tell 'round midnight." As twelve o'clock approaches, cars begin to crowd the street. Lexus jeeps, Mercedes, and BMWs carrying the famous and infamous roll into their VIP parking spaces. Women strut and men swagger towards the entrance, advertising Tommy Hilfiger, Polo, Mos.chino, or their own nearly revealed breasts and backsides. glossed loosely as a "provocatively dressed and/or behaving woman," Many also call Thursday nights sketel nights, a Jamaican word etraying dancehall music's ongoing conflation with so-called "downtown' people and aesthetics.2 Inside, Stone Love, Kingston's most famous sound system, is warming up the growing crowd. Lover's Rock (romantic songs), Beres Hammond, ana some roots (Rastafariinspired) reggae accompany people as they enter. They scout out their space in the club, buy drinks, and settle into the intensifying heat and smoke in anticipation of the bass odyssey ahead. Once the club reaches critical mass, the selector (the person responsible for A t r ¥ % • • • « i i • § I m z• actually playing the records) pays verbal respect to whomever may be in the club that night: "big up Elephant Man in thenouse, big up oil Block Roses crew, big up Bling Dog and Danny English, big up all foreign massive, Slew York. West Coast jig up all don innq de louse, cause ya done enow, a dancenall night tonight../' Once fne proper acknowledgement has been paici to the various dancenall artists and big men (area posses and apns) present, Trie selector begins playing the music fne crowd came to hear. Whichever dancehall singles are newly popular play early, followed by those that have been big for weeks, and then followed by whatever is currently 'running the road.' Within that framework, music is also played in segments defined by subject matter: so the girl tune segment will play, followed by ganja tunes, followed by conscious tunes, etc. As the selector moves from one section to another, he accelerates his disruptive pace, ensuring that the most infectious songs get 'pulled up' (stopped) the quickest, and leaving the crowd literally screaming for more. The selector deftly constructs the dancehall narrative of the night, strategically placing this artist here and this single there, and weaving in the bare bass lines of American hip-hop singles popular at the time. Although the crowd explodes with every pulse or hint of a hip hop track, however, the selector never allows the vocal tracks to play. The excitement builds and the temperature rises. Men step away from the bar and flash lighters and 'gun finger' in the air as instructed by the selector. The casual foot-to-foot sway of the women turns to the latest dance styles like the 'Log On' or the 'Zip it Up.' As the latest single from DJ Sizzla starts and is pulled up again and again before finally playing completely, the place explodes in a frenzy of move- <72> Globalization and the Diaspora As people in different places around the world face similar and interconnected kinds of austerity, inequality, and social disintegration, a transnational culture speaking to shared social realities starts to emerge. Yet the things that divide people remain as important as the things that bring them together. The uneven distribution of resources, opportunities and life chances in the world makes communication between places more instructive and urgent than ever before. A peculiar inversion takes place as people from colonized countries long connected to global migrations emerge as experts about displacement and the qualities needed to combai it. Music from aggrieved communities still serve: traditional purposes of novelty, diversion anc exoticism for many consumers, but a poly-la* ment and sound. Only once the selector has successfully pushed the crowd past the point of explosion will those hip-hop beats reemerge and, this time, the selector plays the actual vocal tracks, letting Ja Rule, Destiny's Child, and R. Kelly prolong Asylum's collective climax. The world is connected, and the popular culture that emanates from the new world urban African diaspora is a vital example of that connection. From West Africa to the streets of Waterhouse and the South Bronx, the urban nodes of the African diaspora are connected in ways that are both painful and exhilarating. And so it istransnational connections of sound and conspicuous consumption map the nodes of creativity throughout the urban African diaspora, a mapping literally embodied on a hot Thursday night in Kingston. This article isan excerpt from a larger work which will eventually explore the similarities and differences between these musics and the larger cultures within which they operate. Methodologically, this article seeks to combine a cultural studies approach (understood here as the critical reading of cultural producers, consumers, products, and the power relationships that inform those interactions) with a more traditionally anthropological and ethnographic approach based on my own interaction with Jamaican dancehall culture, and Jamaican life more generally. eral dialogue among aggrieved populations and a crisis of confidence in declining industrialized nations gives new valence to the cultural creations emanating from aggrieved communities, making the relationship between 'margins' and 'center' dramatically different.3 Now big up all massive, London massive, New York bad bwoy, Toronto massive— all crew! Rude bwoys a foreign and rudies a Yard big up cause you know say all a we a Jamaicans. And we know that no dibby-dibby sound bwoy can cross the border, cause if him test it, him a go dead—pure gun-shot inna him head! So come now, my selector, come with a next riddim cause we no skin teeth and fret fe the sound bwoy dem. Come raggamuffin, enter inside this ya sound...4 To a significant degree, Jamaican dancehall and American rap music operate in a shared space with many musical and — some might argue - potentially revolutionary extramusical issues. Dancehall and rap share the growing attention of local and global youth cultures, the international media, and the academy (though they do not share these attentions equally). DJs and rappers sample one another's material with reckless creativity, and look to one another for collaboration and inspiration. American rapper DMX headlines Sting 2000 (one of Jamaica's major annual stage shows), while Jamaican DJ Baby Cham makes girls swoon as his most recent album debuts in New York City. Jamaican youth sport Nike shoes and 2Pac T-shirts, while American youth grow dreadlocks and wear red, gold and green. What connects the musical producers and consumers of West Kingston, the South Bronx, London and Toronto? Why is it that the musics from these locations share such similar subject matter? Why is it that their residents face "similar and interconnected kinds of austerity, inequality, and social disintegration"? How many Jamaican families have relatives in New York, London or Toronto? Why is it that some of the 'hypest' parties in Jamaica are known as 'British Link-Up' and the 'British Bus Ride'? Why is it that American hip hop artists, black youth (and even some white youth), wear dreadlocks as an external sign of resistance to an exploitative, racist system? Rap, dancehall and the cultures of which they are a part are caught up in dichotomies of cultural imperialism and <73> Asylum nightclub, Kingston, Jamaica creolization, hegemony and autonomy, nationalism and globalization, among others. Both styles are mutually implicated in the fierce ideological warfare between complicity with dominant agendas and the creation of counterhegemonic spaces—a war intimately tied to the alternate acceptance of and resistance to global capitalism. For the purposes of analysis, I would like to divide this connection into three distinct but not mutually exclusive forms. First, there is a link across the African diaspora, with African forms lodged in collective memory, and historically manifested in language, dance, music, religion, and many other expressive cultural forms. In their historical continuity with West African oral and rhythmic traditions, dancehall and rap share formal musical and 1I I g -zssr compositional elements, such as a kinetic orality and the privileging of the rhythmic over the melodic. Second, there are the experiences emerging from, and defined by, the material legacies of slavery and colonization, which continue to determine the position of peoples of African descent within the global economy. These shared conditions of limited economic opportunity, little access to formal education, endemic violence, racism, and class antagonism persist nearly unchanged to the present, and have led dancehall and rap lyrics to share lyrical tropes of property, sex, violence, resistance to an oppressive system, the existence of a higher power, and others. Emerging out of the "noirish streetlevel intricacies" of the postcolonial and postindustrial inner cities of the African diaspora, these issues are given voice by the organic intellectuals who inhabit those spaces.6 In the broadest analysis, much of this reflects the various mechanisms of late capitalism and its global institutions -the international media, the IMF, the World Bank, the WTO—as well as its local institutions, such as school systems, prisons, urban planning and development corporations, etc. The third source of connection between these various communities operates at a more autonomous level, as a set of links created by diasporic residents themselves. Importantly, these links include those forged by Caribbean citizens living 'in foreign.' This third connection includes the Jamaicans and Americans who travel back and forth for business. They work both in the formal economy and - importantly for the purposes of popular culture - in the informal economy of trade in clothes, drugs, guns, money and, often, music. In the music world, DJs, selectors, rappers, producers, and music journalists constantly travel between major satellite cities, performing, buying and recording. Increasingly, however, cultural contact does not require physical travel, but instead relies on the movement of information across technological networks such as the internet, electronic mail and fax machines. These and other technologies work to ensure that dancehall and rap constantly criss-cross the Atlantic in an "info-comscape" that Erik Davis calls "the Black Electronic," in a reiteration of Gilroy's Black Atlantic.( 1) Louis Chude-Sokei gives an anecdotal illustration of this disembodied connectedness: Trie legendary team of Steely and Cleevie in Jamaica, or maybe Bobby Digital in Kingston, may send a floppy disk with the basic <6LENDORA REVIEWxAfrican Quarterly on the ArtsxVol3eNo3&4> <74> ..cultural contact does not require physical travel, but instead relies on the movement of information across technological networks such as the internet, electronic mail and fax machines. These and other technologies work to ensure that dancehall and rap constantly criss-cross the Atlantic in an "info-com-scape" that Erik Davis calls "the Black Electronic".. West Kingston. Or in a community center in Brixton.7 Chude-Sokei's description gives a good introduction to the ways in which contemporary communication technology has impacted the music industry and enabled musics that are reliant on these technologies, like rap and dancehall, to travel swiftly across the routes of cultural connection. It is important to acknowledge both the contemporary urban, postcolonial/ postindustrial contexts from which these musics emerged, and their continuities with earlier continental African forms. The relationship between rap and dancehall far predates the info-corn revolution, and can be traced backwards from its current postmodern manifestations, to the rhythm track to Daddy Freddy, who is in London ... This track may feature the latest craze in dancehall rhythms—sampled Indian tab/as mixed with Jamaican mento patterns from the I 950's. After a brief vocal session that same information could go to Massive B in the Bronx for hip-hop beats or to Sting International in Brooklyn where R&B touches are added. Again, all of this is by modem or floppy disk. Within a few days the mix is booming down the fences at the weekly sound clash between Metromedia and Stone Love somewhere in South Bronx in the 1970s and further, to music and rituals created in the days of slavery to pre Middle-Passage West Africa. Both the African and New World heritages of these musics are important if we are to fully understand the depth and history of their relationship. Rap and dancehall are unrelentingly postmodern in their reliance on technology, their extraction and recycling of old material, and their intrinsic aversion to be held down under any consistent ideological system. They are also deeply traditional in their reliance on a combination of orality and rhythm, which might be understood in the context of 'Nommo,' the African concepfthat understands the power of 'the word' and the power of rhythm to constitute the power of life itself.8 However, to say that rap and dancehall are merely the newest incarnation of the African • tradition of rhythmic orality would be to efface not only their reliance on technology but their obsessive geographic specificity and their will- <75> Top left:Jackles, the video cassette man at Slipe Road, Kingston 5. Above: Wall posters outside Club Afrique, Deaney Road, Kingston, Jamaica.© Sonja Stanley-Niaah. Left: Sound System, Dancehall party. ingness to borrow from any and everyone to make "something torn and new"9.Tricia Rose argues for this multiple-history understanding, borrowing from Andre Craddock-Willis' work on the blues, jazz and r&b, but expanding his analytical frame to encompass rap, as I in turn expand it to include dancehall. As Rose restates it, Willis' central formulation was "the necessary tension between the historical specificity of [the music's] emergence and the points of continuity between [contemporary Afrodiasporic music] and several [older] Afrodiasporic forms, traditions, and practices"10. In the local Jamaican dialogue around dancehall, these two histories are often pitted against each other; the contemporary history and context is conflated with 'slackness', while all that situates itself explicitly within the African context is conflated with 'culture'.11 Dub poet Linton Kwesi Johnson reminds us that this is an oversimplification, and that one can find 'culture' in the 'slackest' places. r W/ffi the discovery of digital recording, an extreme minimalism has emerged ... On the one hand, fh/s music is totally technological; on the other the rhythms are far more Jamaican: they're drawn from Etu, Pocomania, Kumina—African-based religious cults who provide the rhythms used by Shabba Ranks or Buju Banton. So despite the extent of the technology being used, the music is becoming even rootsier, with a resonance even for quite old listeners, because it evokes back to what they first heard in rural Jamaica"'2. If continuities with African and post-Middle Passage folk and popularforms (jazz, r&b, funk, Jamaican nyabinghi and Kumina drumming, menfo music etc.,) form the historical foundation of dancehall and hip hop, the door to the house built on that foundation was opened in 1974, the year in which artists, fans and critics alike agree that rap music emerged from a transplanted dancehall practice13. The story goes that Clive Campbell (also known as DJ Kool Here) moved from Jamaica to the Bronx in 1967. By 1967 sound system culture had already been long established in Jamaica, with early sound systems having played Jamaican and Afro-American popular styles for years while vocalists like U Roy and Big Youth deejayed along with the music. After being in the States fora couple of years, Here put together a sound system similar to those already so popular in Jamaica and began to host parties. But finding his American audience unresponsive to the reggae beats he had brought from home, Here sought out the funk and Latin beats that were popular in New York at the time. Because remixed instrumental versions of singles had yet to be popularized in America, Campbell had to buy records for whatever short sections of rhythm and instrumental without vocals he could find. In the process, he created what came to be known as a "breakbeat." Playing those sections repeatedly by bringing the needle on the record player back to the same spot, or by switching deftly between multiple records to keep the beat going, Here imitated the instrumental 'dub' versions which were growing in popularity at the time he had left the island. Mimicking the early Jamaican sound system DJs, Kool Here began dropping in street slang above these beats, encouraging those on the dance floor to "Rock on my mellow!"14. As Here's breakbeat style became more popular, his technique also improved to the point where he was so busy switching between <76> ket Kool Here's career, coupled with the evergrowing Jamaican population in New York City, began decades of largely underground cross-fertilization between hip hop and dancehall music. Because both rap and dancehall were organic inner-city creations and largely unconstrained by the formalities of the music industry, this cross-fertilization had been relatively free of the weighty issues common in other world music creolizations. The populations trading their cultural products were equally disenfranchised, connected by immigration and the partial democratization and appropriation of first world technology, thus, records and keeping the beat going that he hired two MCs to take over the role of entertainer: talking over the beats and putting on dance shows for the crowd. This was an interesting alternative to the Jamaican case, in which the DJ left the record manipulation to the selector whiles/he maintained the toasting role. However, the difference is true to a distinction in musical focus between dancehall and hip The relationship between rap and dancehall far predates the infocom revolution, and can be traced backwards from its current postmodern manifestations, to the South Bronx in the 1970s and further, to music and rituals created In the days of slavery to pre Middle-Passage West Africa. hop: in dancehall, the rhythm tracks are prefabricated in the studio as dub versions, and the DJ provides the spontaneous element with his toasting. In hip-hop, by contrast, the rhythm track is often manipulated live. The break beat pioneered by Here became the cornerstone of hip-hop music and culture, laying the groundwork for break dancing and rap. Resistance and Complicity: Dancehall, Rap and the Mar- the relationship was free of the problematic power dynamics critics point to in other first world/third world exchanges. However, times have changed since the 1970s, and rap and dancehall have both partially emerged from their subaltern origins, and now circulate as valuable commodities in the global market. As the logic of late capitalism stretches and exploits the circumstances which connect them, rap and dancehall are similarly stretched and transformed, and, in some ways, their creativity is conscripted in the ongoing project of totalitarian capitalism. Hip-hop culture, in particular, especially over the last five to ten years, has emerged as the loudest voice of American popular culture due, in part, to the mainstream record companies who saw the potential for capital gain in the attraction of suburban white American teenagers to the music. With this relatively new development has emerged the common misconception that rap was explicitly opposed to, and positioned outside of, the market—until mainstream attention came along. The argument follows that rap has since been absorbed into the machine of the popular music project, and what began as anti-establishment is now the establishment's most popular and lucrative musical form. This is certainly true in part, but Rose does well to remind us that: Hip hop's moment(s) of incorporation are a shift in the already existing relationship hip hop has always had to the commodity system. For example, the hip hop DJ produces, amplifies and revises already recorded sounds, rappers use high-end microphones, and it would be naive to think that [rappers] were never interested in monetary compensation for their work. If anything, black style through hip hop has contributed to the continued Afro Americanization of contemporary commercial culture. It is a common misperception among hip hop artists and cultural critics that during the early days, hip hop was motivated by pleasure rather than profit, as if the two were incompatible. [The difference is that] during the late I970s and early 1980s, the market for hip hop was still based inside New York's black and Hispanic communities ... [there has been] a shift in control over the scope and direction of the profit-making process, out of the hands of local black and Hispanic entrepreneurs and into the hands of larger whiteowned, multinational businesses'5. Though dancehall has not been so radically centralized, DJ Kiprich's commercial for <77> Mother's Chicken (both radio and TV versions) and the dancehall-aping commercials for Singers and Lotto show the ways in which dancehall has also been gradually enlisted in capitalism's army. The Jamaican government has also organized a new sub-committee on music, somehow only recently realizing that the country's music is among its most successful exports. Because of dancehall and rap's commercial viability, the former informal organization of money and power has largely been taken over by major recording labels and producers, again, to a greater extent in the case of hip hop. Though the raw resources may still come from the ghettos of West Kingston and Compton, those resources are mined and marketed for profit by individuals far from those inner-city locations. Many DJs and rappers have gotten rich "in the game," but they are a small minority. Sadly, however, the stories of the rich and famous - such as Beenie Man and Jay Z - get the most media attention, creating the false impression that DJing or rapping is a viable route out of poverty. Thus, the fairy tale narratives of fantastic wealth generated from verbal prowess obscure the continued structural oppression and inequality that keeps inner-city youth out of formal education and the formal job market. As bell hooks puts it, consumers, fans, artists and critics alike too often fail to make a " . . . correlation between the mainstream hedonistic consumerism ... and the reproduction of a social system that perpetuates and maintains an underclass"16. However, it is important to note that in Jamaica especially, the dancehall industry, because of it's size and multiple points of access, is a viable, if partial, alternative economy which can provide paying jobs at various levels to those who wouldn't otherwise have access to work. Individuals can work as DJs, singers, sound system operators, promoters and producers in an arena which remains largely unregulated. This ongoing relocation of dancehall and hip hop from the marginalized music of the poor to the mainstream music of popular culture creates new problems. As rap and dancehall are ever more bound up in their national and global economies, it is imperative that artists, critics and fans ask: Who determines and influences popular culture? Does it emerge from the people, the grass roots as autonomous expressions of their reality and their modes of existence, or is if imposed from above by people in positions of dominance ... Is popular culture appropriafed national and international followings at the same time? I conclude with two opposing views on the topic: by those in power for indoctrination of a subgroup to dominant values and ideas, or as an instrument of resistance and opposition to dominance, or both?17. ' [Spike] Lee's work cannot be revolutionary and generate wealth at the same time. Many [critical thinkers, writers, academics and intellectuals] participate in the production and marketing of black culture in ways that are complicit with the existing oppressive structure. That complicity begins with the equation of black capitalism with black self-determination ... When the discourse of blackness is in no way connected to an effort to promote collective black self-determination it becomes simply another resource appropriated by the colonizer. It then becomes possible for white supremacist culture to be It is equally imperative to interrogate the ways in which the commodification of these musics and their incorporation into mainstream popular culture has changed the power dynamics between the two styles, and between the people and cultures that produce them. Is the influence of rap music on dancehall, and the influence of hip-hop culture on Jamaican youth culture, more generally, an imposition of hegemonic American values and ideals? Or, does the relationship between the musics and cultures of inner-city America and Jamaica "serve as a conduit for ideas and images articulating subaltern sensitivities," creating its own resistant spaces that destabilize the dominant narratives of American capitalism and consumerism?18. Or are both true? The questions of how dancehall and rap relate to their respective national economies is directly linked to the question of how they in turn relate to one another in an outernational way." For example, some might argue that within their respective countries, the creativity and autonomy of rap, and dancehall to a lesser extent, has been subordinated to dominant political or economic interests, their messages "bleached," and their content compromised in order not to offend or challenge the status quo. If this is indeed the case, this compromised product does not necessarily serve the interests of the artists once it leaves national borders. Rather, it serves the interests of those holding political and economic power. This is somewhat an oversimplification, since products sanctioned by those in power can nonetheless contain subversive or alternative messages20. Still, there is a proportional relationship insofar as the more a product is edited and managed by mainstream institutions, the less likely it is to contain revolutionary content, but the more likely it is to reach international audiences. Similarly, the more underground the production of the music, the more freedom the artists have to create messages of their own, but the less likely that the music is to leave even the city in which it was made, let alone its national borders. Thus Shaggy's 'Hot Shot' album with its decidedly pop-influenced musical content (including a collaboration with Janet Jackson, among others) and mostly romance- oriented lyrics will exceed platinum status (i.e. sales of 1,000,000 units), while Bounty Killer's work (perhaps the most popular DJ music in Jamaica) will have little or no mainstream American media presence due to its emphasis on themes mainly relevant to the local Jamaican audience. Similarly, R. Kelly, Jay Z and Destiny's Child will get abundant radio and club play in Jamaica because of their mainstream production and marketing teams, while Dead Prez or Black Star (two American rap groups with explicitly Jamaican and Rastafariinspired lyrical and musical content) remain entirely unknown on the island. The question remains—how can rappers and dancehall DJs attain the financial success they deserve while retaining the artistic freedom that keeps their products challenging? Is it possible to be creative and make money and to maintain Post-Colonial literature, Third cinema, and hip hop music all protest against conditions created by the oligopolies who distribute them as commodities for profit... Yet it is exactly their desire to work through rather than outside of existing structures that defines their utility as a model for contemporary global politics ... perpetuated and maintained even as it appears to become inclusive ... The desire to be "down" has promoted a conservative appropriation of specific aspects of underclass black life, whose reality is dehumanized via a process of commodification wherein no correlation is made between mainstream hedonistic consumerism and the reproduction of a social system that perpetuates and maintains an underclass.. Those of us who are still working to [end] domination in all its forms are working to protect an alternative politics of representation—working to free the black image so if [is] not enslaved to any exploitative or oppressive agenda21 Oppositional practices among diasporic populations emerge from painful experiences of labor migrations, cultural imperialism, and political subordination. Yet they are distinguished by an ability to work within these systems. In contemporary culture, artists from aggrieved communities often subvert or invert the very instruments of domination necessary for the creation of the new global economy—it's consumer goods, technologies and images. Post-Colonial literature. Third cinema, and hip hop music all protest against conditions created by the oligopolies who distribute them as commodities for profit ...Yet it is exactly their desire to work through rather than outside of existing structures that defines their utility as a model for contemporary global politics ... One might conclude that this reliance of post-colonial cul- <78> ture on existing economic and cultural forms can at best lead only to subordinate rather than autonomous reforms. That possibility certainly exists. But the desire to work through existing contradictions rather than to stand outside them represents not so much a preference for melioristic reform over revolutionary change, but rather a recognition of the impossibility of standing outside totalitarian systems of domino- Won.22 Conclusion This paper raises more questions than it offers answers. Hopefully, however, this overview of the ways rap and dancehall relate to one another can stand on its own as a preliminary theoretical exploration. As music touches all of our lives, we are all implicated in the power dynamics inherent in our own consumption of it, and as the world's market gets smaller, hopefully its ears will grow bigger as the interaction between musics of the world intensifies.GR Notes 1 Every night at Asylum has a musical theme. Thursdays are devoted exclusively to dancehall music. 2 Stoizoff, Norman. 2000. Wake the Town and Tell the People: Dancehall Culture in Jamaica. Durham: Duke University Press, pg.230-245 3 Lipsitz, George. 1994. Dangerous Crossroads: Popular Music, Postmodernism and the Poetics of Place. London: Verso.pg.7 4 Skyjuice, Selector for multimedia, quoted in Chude-Sokei, Louis. 1995. "Postnationalist Geographies: Rasta, Ragga and Reinventing Africa." In Chris Potash (ed.) Reggae, Rasta, Revolution: Jamaican Music from Ska to Dub. New York: Schirmer Books. 5 "Organic intellectual" is used here in the Gramscian sense, as individuals "operating without the benefits that flow either from a relationship to the modern state or from secure institutional locations within the culture industries." (Gilroy, Paul.1994."After the Love Has Gone':Biopolitics and the Decay of the Black Public Sphere" in Against Race: Imagining Political Culture Beyond the Color Line. Cambridge:Hatvard University Press, pg.76. 6 Chude-Sokei, Louis. 1995. "Postnationalist Geographies: Rasta, Ragga and Reinventing Africa." In Chris Potash (ed.) Reggae, Rasta, Revolution: Jamaican Music from Ska to Dub. New York: Schirmer Books. 'ibid, pg.221. 9 Smitherman, Geneva. 1998. "Word From the Hood: The Lexicon of African- American Vernacular English." In (eds.) Mufwene, Rickford, African- American English: Structure, History and Use. Bailey and Baugh, pg.270 9 Brathwaite, Edward Kamau. 1973. The Arrivants. A New World Trilogy. London: Oxford University Press.pg.270. 10 Rose, Tricia. 1994. Black Noise: Rap Music and Black Culture in Contemporary America. Hanover: University Press of New England, pg.25. 11 Critics of dancehall, both internal and external, often label the music "slack" if the lyrics deal with sex or guns or other subject matter deemed unsavory in some way. This music is then opposed to "culture" music, which would be the tradition continuing out of the roots reggae of the 70s, which takes Rastafari, Africa, and spiritual and social uplittment as its main themes. Though these two types of music certainly exist and are distinct from one another, divisions are never that clear and there are always gray areas. Bob Marley sang about sex just like Bounty Killer DJs about God 12 Bilby, Kenneth. 1995. "Chapter 7: Jamaica" in Caribbean Currents: Caribbean Music from Rumba to Reggae. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, pg.177. 13 Perkins, William Eric. 1996. Droppin' Science: Critical Essays in Rap <79> Music and Hip Hop Culture. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.pg.5 "Hebdige, Dick. Cut N" Mix Culture 15 Rose, Tricia. Black Noise, pg.4O. 16 hooks, bell. 1994. "Spending Culture: Marketing the Black Underclass" in Outlaw Culture: Resisting Representations. New York: Routledge,pg.152 17 Adjaye, Joseph K. 1997. "Introduction: Popular Culture and the Black Experience." In Joseph K. Adjaye & Adrianne R. Andrews (eds.) Language, Rhythm, and Sound: Black Popular Cultures into the Twenty-First Century. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, pg3 18 Lipsitz, George. 1994. Dangerous Crossroads: Popular Music, Postmodernism and the Poetics of Place. London: Verso, pg.36. 19 "outemational" is a relexification of the word "international" common is the speech of Rastafarians. For a discussion of Rasta language, See Velma Pollard's Dread Talk. 20 Lipsitz, George. 1994. Dangerous Crossroads: Popular Music, Postmodernism and the Poetics of Place. London: Verso, pg.99. 21 hooks,bell.1994. "Spending Culture: Marketing the Black Underclass." 22 Lipsitz, George. Dangerous Crossroads, pg 34. Acknowledgements 1 would like to thank the University of the West Indies, specifically Dean Pereira and the Cultural Studies program, for including me in their seminar. I would also like to thank Michael Veal for his support, encouragement and work on my behalf. Unu done know seh ya laaj. Nuff respect, seen? References: Cooper, Carolyn. 1993. Noises in the Blood: Orality, Gender and the 'Vulgar' Body of Jamaican Popular Culture. London: Macmillan Education Ltd. Davis, Erik. 2001. "Roots and Wires: Polyrhythmic Cyberspace and the Black Electronic" from www.levity .com Devonish, Hubert. "Electronic Orature" Fanon, Franz. 1965. The Wretched of the Earth. London: Penguin Publishers. Foucault, Michel. Truth and Power." In Colin Gordon (ed.) Power Knowledge: Selected Interviews and Other Writings, 1972-1977, Pantheon. Gilroy, Paul. 1994. "After the Love Has Gone' : Biopolitics and the Decay of the Black Public Sphere" in Against Race: Imagining Political Culture Beyond the Color Line. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. - 1993. The Black Atlantic: Modernity and Double Consciousness. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. Gonzales, Michael A. and Havelock Nelson. 1991. Bring the Noise: A Guide to Rap Music and Hip Hop Culture. New York: Harmony Books. Jackson Jr., John L. 1997. "The Soles of Black Folk: These Reeboks Were Made for Runnin1 (From the White Man)." In (eds.) Judith Jackson Fossett and Jeffery A. Tucker Race Consciousness: African-American Studies for the New Century. New York: New York University Pres Morgan, Marcyliena. 1998. "More Than a Mood or an Attitude: Discourse and Verbal Genres in African-American Culture" In (eds.) Mufwene, Rickford, African-American English: Structure, History and Use. Bailey and Baugh. Rose, Tricia.1997. "Cultural Survivalisms and Marketplace Subversions: Black Popular Culture and Politics into the Twenty-first Century." In (eds.) Joseph K. Adjaye & Adrianne R. Andrews. Language, Rhythm, and Sound: Black Popular Cultures Into the Twenty-First Century. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press. Sartre, Jean-Paul. 1963. Preface to Fanon's The Wretched of the Earth. London: Penguin Books. 2 Stoizoff, Norman. 2000. Wake the Town and Tell the People: Dancehall Culture in Jamaica. Durham: Duke University Press. Trouillot, Michel Rolph. "The Caribbean Region: An Open Frontier in Anthropological Theory" in Annual Review of Anthropology. 1992. 21: 19-42,