Sound Clash

Jamaican Dancehall Culture at Large

C. Cooper

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2004
• eBook ISBN:
  9781403982605
• Print ISBN:
  9781403964243
  9781403964250
• Subtopic: Music

Megawattage sound systems have blasted the electronically-enhanced riddims and tongue-twisting lyrics of Jamaica's dancehall DJs across the globe. This high-energy raggamuffin music is often dismissed by old-school roots reggae fans as a raucous degeneration of classic Jamaican popular music. In this provocative study of dancehall culture, Cooper offers a sympathetic account of the philosophy of a wide range of dancehall DJs: Shabba Ranks, Lady Saw, Ninjaman, Capleton, Buju Banton, Anthony B and Apache Indian. Cooper also demonstrates the ways in which the language of dancehall culture, often devalued as mere 'noise,' articulates a complex understanding of the border clashes which characterize Jamaican society, and analyzes the sound clashes that erupt in the movement of Jamaican dancehall culture across national borders.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction: Word, Sound, and Power
• ONE: Border Clash: Sites of Contestation
• TWO: Slackness Personified: Representations of Female Sexuality in the Lyrics of Bob Marley and Shabba Ranks
• THREE: Lady Saw Cuts Loose: Female Fertility Rituals in the Dancehall
• FOUR: "Mama, Is That You?": Erotic Disguise in the Films
• FIVE: "Lyrical Gun": Metaphor and Role-Play in Dancehall Culture
• SIX: "More Fire": Chanting Down Babylon from Bob Marley to Capleton
• SEVEN: "Vile Vocals": Exporting Jamaican Dancehall Lyrics to Barbados
• EIGHT: Hip-hopping across Cultures: Reggae to Rap and Back
• NINE: "Mix Up the Indian with All the Patwa": Rajamuffin Sounds in Cool Britannia
• TEN: The Dancehall Transnation: Language, Lit/orature, and Global Jamaica
• Notes
• Works Cited
• Permissions
• Index