Jamaica Dancehall had its genesis in the mid to late 1950s when the term largely referred to a space where ordinary Jamaicans would gather to listen and dance to the music of the day that was supplied by a sound system comprised of a single turntable and one or two speaker cabinets. More recently the broadside against Jamaica Dancehall has been stepped up as some with economic and political clout have sought to pin the blame of Jamaica’s runaway crime problem on the chest of Dancehall music and its emergent culture. We saw the same efforts used against the development of Ska and later watched as they upped the ante against Reggae, and later as the efforts shifted to targeting Dee-Jays and Dancehall music. We saw this in the developmental years of Jamaican Blues and R&B music. However, in the nearly 70 years that Jamaicans have been creating music, mainstream Jamaica has consistently derided not only the fare produced but have used every lever at their disposal to suppress that creativity. In the area of music production, the island ranks among the most prolific, turning out more than 400 sides per week. It is a matter of record that in the global cultural sphere, Jamaica punches significantly above its weight, and nowhere else is this more evident than in the music sphere.
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