She also highlights how dancehall creates a community of its fans, forged from the need for solidarity, a space where people communicate, without words, bumping, grinding, and shaking away their woes. She puts dance, movement of the body, and how it influences identity, at the centre of her thesis. Author Sonjah Stanley Niaah chronicles dancehall as a distinct phenomenon from reggae, pinpointing the exact moment that the music of Jamaica began to change – from the “conscious” music of the Seventies to the riches-and-fame obsession of the Eighties and Nineties. From Japanese DJ Ackee to the Zip It Up dance, it’s all here – the A to Z of a music, a movement that started in the Eighties in Kingston’s ghettos and can now be heard almost everywhere in the world. Finally, someone with a PhD who speaks a language that de man pon de street can understand. Rarely has an academic tome so delighted a reader. The only problem with reading Dancehall: From Slave Ship to Ghetto is resisting the urge to put on some Beenie Man and just bruk out.
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