music cross currents

7/29/2019 Music Cross Currents

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LIT'S THURSDAY-DANCEHALL NIGHT-AT ASYLUM, KINGSTON'S hot-test nightclub.1 Knutsford Street in glitzy New Kingston has beencrowded from early in the night with the club's bouncers and staff,vendors selling jerk chicken, fish soup, cigarettes, and chewing g um ,and general onlookers. As the song says, however, "...it begins totell 'round midnight." As twelve o'clock approaches, cars begin tocrowd the street. Lexus jeeps, Mercedes, and BMWs carrying thefamous and infamous roll into their VIP parking spaces. Women strutand men swagger towards the entrance, advertising Tommy Hilfiger,Polo, Mos.chino, or their own nearly revealed breasts and backsides.Many also call Thursday nights sketel nights, a Jamaican wordg lossed loosely as a "provocatively dressed an d/or behaving wom an,"etraying dancehall music's ongoing conflation with so-called "down-town' people and aesthetics.

2Inside, Stone Love, Kingston's mostfamous sound system, is warming up the growing crowd. Lover'sRock (romantic songs), Beres Hammond, ana some roots (Rastafari-inspired) reggae accompany people as they enter. They scout outtheir space in the club, buy drinks, and settle into the intensifyingheat and smoke in anticipation of the bass odyssey ahead. Once theclub reaches critical mass, the selector (the person responsible for

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ac tua l ly p lay ing therecords) pays verbal re-spect to whomever maybe in the club that night:"big up Elephant Man inthenouse, big up oil BlockRoses crew, big up BlingDog and Danny English,big up all foreign massive,Slew York. West Coastjig up all don innq delous e, cause ya doneenow, a dancenall nighttonight../' Once fnep r o p e r a c k n o w le d g e -ment has been paici tothe various dancenall art-ists and big men (areaposses and apns) present,Trie selector begins play-ing the music fne crowdcame to hear.

Whichever danceha ll singles are newlypopular play early, follow ed by those that havebeen big for weeks, and then followed by what-ever is currently 'run ning the road.' Within thatframew ork, music is also played in segmentsdefined by subject matter: so the girl tune seg-ment will play, followed by ganja tunes, fol-lowe d by conscious tu nes, etc. As the selectormoves from one section to another, he accel-erates his disruptive pace, ensuring that themost infectious songs get 'pu lled up' (stopped)the quickest, and leaving the crowd literallyscreaming for more. The selector deftly con-structs the danceh all narrative of the n ight, stra-tegically plac ing this artist here and this singlethere, and weaving in the bare bass lines ofAmerican hip-hop singles popular at the time.Although the crowd explodes with every pulseor hint of a h ip ho p track , however, the selec-tor never allows the voca l tracks to play.

The excitement builds and the tempera-ture rises. Men step away from the bar andflash lighters and 'gun fing er' in the air as in-structed by the selector. The casual foot-to- footsway of the women turns to the latest dancestyles like the 'Log O n ' or the 'Zip it Up. ' As thelatest single from DJ Sizzla starts and is pulledup again and again before finally playing com-pletely, the place explodes in a frenzy of move-

ment and sound . O nly once the selector hassuccessfully pushed the c row d past the point ofexplosion will those h ip-hop beats reemerge and,this time, the selector plays the actual vocaltracks, letting Ja Rule, Destiny's Ch ild , and R.Kelly prolong Asylum's collective climax. Theworld is connected, and the popu lar culture hatemanates from the new w orld urban Africandiaspora is a vital example of that connection.From West Africa to the streets of Waterhouseand the South Bronx, the urban nodes of theAfrican diaspora are connected in ways thatare both painful and exhilarating. And so it is -transnational connections of sound and con-spicuous consum ption ma p the nodes of crea-tivity through out the u rban A frican d iaspora, amapping literally em bod ied on a ho t Thursdaynight in Kingston.

This article isa n excerpt from a larger workwhich will eventually explore the similarities anddifferences between these musics and the argercultures within which they operate. Methodo-logically, this article seeks to combine a cul-tural studies app roach (understood here as thecritical reading of cultural producers , consum-ers, products, and the power relationships thatinform those interactions) w ith a m ore tradition-ally anthropological and ethnographic ap-proach based on my own interaction with Ja-maican dancehall c ulture, an d Jamaican lifemore generally.

Globalization and theDiasporaAs people in differe nt places around the

world face similar an d interco nnected kinds ofausterity, inequality, and socia l disintegration,a transnational culture speaking t o shared so-cial realities starts to emerge . Yet the things thatdivide people remain as imp ortan t as the thingsthat bring them together. The uneven distribu-tion of resources, opportunities and life chancesin the world makes communication betweenplaces more instructive and urgent than everbefore. A peculiar inversion takes place as peo-ple from colonized countries long connected ogloba l migrations eme rge as experts about dis-placement and the qualities needed to combaiit. Music from aggrieved com munities still serve:traditi onal purposes of novelty, diversion ancexoticism for many consum ers, but a poly-la*

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eral dialogue am ong aggrieved populations anda crisis of confidence in declining industrializednations gives new valence to the cultural crea-tions emanating from aggrieved com munities,making the relationship between 'margins ' and'center' dramatically different.3

No w big up all massive, London mas-sive, New York bad bwoy,Toronto massiveall crew! Rude bwoys a foreign and rudies aYard big up cause you know say all a we aJamaica ns. And we kno w that no dibby-dibbysound bwoy can cross he border, cause if himtest t, him a go deadpure gun-shot nna himhead! So come now, my selector, come with anext riddim cause we no skin teeth and fret fethe sound bwoy dem. Come raggamuffin, en-ter inside this ya sound...4

To a signif icant degree, Jamaicandancehall an d American rap m usic operate ina shared space with many musical and somemight argue - potentially revolutionary extra-musical issues. Dancehall and rap share thegrowing attention of local and global youthcultures, the international media, and the acad -emy (though they do not share these attentionsequally). DJs and rappers sample one anoth-er's material with reckless creativity, and lookto one another for collaboration and inspira-t ion. American rapper DMX headlines Sting2000 (one of Jamaica's major annual stageshows), while Jamaican DJ Baby Cham makesgirls swoon as his most recent album debuts inNew York City. Jamaican youth sport N ike shoesand 2Pac T-shirts, while American youth growdreadlocks and wear red, gold and green. Whatconnects the musical producers and consum-ers of West King ston, the South Bronx, Londonand Toronto? Why is it that the musics fromthese locations share such similar subject ma t-ter? Why is it that their residents face "similarand interconnected kinds of austerity, ineq ual-ity, and social disintegration"? How many Ja-maican families have relatives in New York, Lon-don or Toronto? Why is it that some of the'hypest' parties in Jamaica are known as 'Brit-ish Link-Up' and the 'British Bus Ride'? Why isit that American hip hop artists, black youth(and even some white youth), wear dreadlocksas an external sign of resistance to an explo ita-tive, racist system? Rap, dancehall and the cul-tures of which they are a part are cau ght up indichotomies of cultural imperialism and

Asylum nightclub, Kingston, Jam aica

creolization, hegemony and autonomy, nation-alism and global ization, among others. Bothstyles are mutually implicated in the fierce ideo-logical warfare between complicity with dom i-nant agendas and the creation of counter-hegemonic spacesa war intimately tied to thealternate acceptance of and resistance to g lo-bal capitalism.

For the purposes of analysis, I would liketo divide this connection into three distinct bu tnot mutually exclusive forms. First, there is alink across th e African diaspora, with Africanforms lodged in collective memory, a nd histori-cally manifested in language, dance, music,rel igion, and many other expressive culturalforms. In their historical continuity with WestAfrican oral and rhythmic traditions, danceh alla n d r a p s h a re f o r m a l m u s i c a l a n d


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com positio nal elements, such as a kinetic oral-ity and the privileging of the rhythmic over themelodic.

Second, there are the experiences emerg-ing fro m, a nd defined by, the m aterial legaciesof slavery and co lonization , which continue todetermine the position of peoples of Africandescent within the g loba l economy. These sharedconditions of limited economic opportunity, lit-tle access to formal education, endemic vio-lence, racism, and class antagonism persistnearly unchan ged to the present, and have leddancehall and rap lyrics to share lyrical tropesof prope rty, sex, viole nce, resistance to an op -pressive system, the existence of a higher power,and o thers. Em erging out of the "noirish street-level intricacies" of the postcolonial andpostindustrial inner cit ies of the Africandias pora , these issues are given voice by theorganic intellectuals w ho inhabit those spaces.6

In the bro adest analysis, m uch of this re-flects the various mechanisms of late capital-ism and its glob al institutions -t h e internationalmedia, the IMF, the World Bank, the WTO aswell as its loc al institutions, such as school sys-tems, prisons, urban planning and develop-ment corporations, etc.

The third source of connection betweenthese various communities operates at a moreautonom ous level, as a set of links created bydiasporic residents themselves. Importantly, theselinks include those forged by Caribbean citi-zens living 'in foreign.' This third connectionincludes the Jamaicans and Americans whotravel back and forth for business. They workboth in the formal economy and - im portantlyfor the purposes of popu lar culture - in the in-formal economy of trade in clothes, drugs, guns,money and, often, music. In the music world,DJs, selectors, rappers, p roducers, and musicjournalists constantly travel between majo r sat-ellite cities, performing, buying and recording.Increasingly, however, cultura l contact does notrequire physical tra vel, but instead relies on themovement of information across technologicalnetworks such as the internet, electronic mailand fax m achines. These and other technolo-gies work to ensure that dancehall an d rap con-stantly criss-cross the Atlantic in an "info-com-scape" that Erik Davis calls "the Black Elec-tronic ," in a reiteration of Gilroy 's Black Atlan-tic.(1) Louis Chude-Sokei gives an anecdotalillustration of this disem bodied connectedness:

Trie legendary team of Steely and Cleeviein Jamaica, or maybe Bobby Digital in King-ston, may send a floppy disk with the basic

rhythm rack to Daddy Freddy, who is in Lon-don ... This track may feature the latest crazein dancehall rhythmssampled Indian tab/asmixed with Jamaican mento patterns from theI 950's. After a brief vocal session hat sameinformation could go to Massive B n the Bronxfor hip-hop be ats or to Sting International inBrooklyn where R&B touches are added.Again, all of this is by modem or floppy disk.Within a few days the mix is booming downthe fences at the weekly sound clash betw eenMetromedia and Stone Love somewhere in

..cultural contact does not re-quire physical travel, but insteadrelies on the movement of in fo r-mation across technological net-works such as the internet,electronic mail and fax ma-chines. These and other tech-nologies work to ensure thatdancehall and rap constantlycriss-cross the Atlantic in an"info-com-scape" that Erik Daviscalls "the Black Electronic"..

West K ingston. Or in a community center inBrixton.7Chude-Sokei's description gives a good

introduction to the ways in which contempo-rary communication technology has impactedthe music industry and enabled musics that arereliant on these technologies, like rap anddancehall, to travel swiftly across the rou tes ofcultural connection.

It is important to acknowledge both theco n te mp o ra ry u rb a n , p o s t co lo n ia l /postindustrial contexts from which these musicsemerged, and their continuities with earlier con-tinental African forms. The relationship betweenrap and dancehall far predates the info-cornrevolution, and can be traced backwards fromits current postmodern manifestations, to the

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South Bronx in the 1970s a nd further, to musicand rituals c reated in the days of slavery to preMiddle-Passage West Africa. Both the Africanand New W orld heritages of these musics areimportant if we are to fully understand the depthand history of their relationship. Rap anddancehall are unrelentingly postmodern in theirreliance on technology, their extraction and re-cycling of old material, and their intrinsic aver-sion to be held down under any consistent ideo-logical system. They are also deeply tradition alin their reliance on a com bination of orality andrhythm, which might be understood in the con-text of 'N om m o,' the African concepfthat un-derstands the power of 'the wo rd' and the powerof rhythm to cons titute the pow er of life itself.8

However, to say that rap and dancehallare merely the newest incarnation of the African tradition of rhythmic orality would be to effacenot only their reliance on technology but theirobsessive geograph ic specificity and their will-

Top left:Jackles, the videocass ette man at Slipe Road,Kingston 5.Above: Wall poste rs outsideClub Afrique, Deaney Road,Kingston, Jamaica. SonjaStanley-Niaah. Left: SoundSystem, Dancehall party.

ingness to borrow from any and everyone tomake "something torn and new"9.Tricia Roseargues for this multiple-history understanding,borrowing from Andre Craddock-Willis' work onthe blues, jazz and r& b, but expanding his ana -lytical frame to encompass rap, as I in turn ex-pand it to include dancehall. As Rose restatesit, Willis' central formulation was "the neces-sary tension between the historical specificity of[the music's] emergence and the points of con -tinuity between [contemporary Afrodiasporic mu-sic] and several [older] Afrodiasporic forms , tra-ditions, and practices"10. In the local Jamai-can dialogue around dance hall, these two his-tories are often pitted against each other; thecontemporary history and context is conflatedwith 's lackne ss', while al l that situates itself ex-plicitly within the African context is conflated w ith'culture'.11 Dub poet Linton Kwesi Johnson re-minds us that this is an overs implifica tion, andthat one can find 'culture' in the 'slackest'places.

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r W/ffi the discovery of digital recording,an extreme minimalism has emerged ... Onthe one hand, fh/s music is totally technologi-cal; on the other the rhythm s are far m ore Ja-maican: they're drawn from Etu, Pocom ania,KuminaAfrican-based religiouscults who pro-vide the rhythms used by Shabba R anks orBuju Banton. So despite the extent of the ech-nology being used, the music is becomingeven rootsier, with a resona nce even for quiteold listeners, because it evokes ba ck to whatthey first heard in rural Jamaica"'2.

If continuities with African and po st-Mid-dle Passage folk and popu larform s (jazz, r&b,funk, Jamaican nyabinghi an d Kumina drum-ming, menfo music etc.,) form the historicalfoundation of dancehall and hip hop, the doorto the house built on that foundation wasopened in 19 74, the year in which artists, fansand critics alike agree that rap music emergedfrom a transplanted danceh all practice13 . Thestory goes that Clive Ca mp bell (also known asDJ Kool Here) moved from Jamaica to the Bronxin 1967. By 1967 sound system culture hadalready been long established in Jam aica, withearly sound systems having played Jamaicanand Afro-Am erican popular styles for years whilevocalists like U Roy and Big Youth deejayedalong with the music. After being in the Statesfo ra couple of years, Here put together a soundsystem similar to those already so popu lar inJamaica and began to host parties. But findinghis American a udience unresponsive to the reg-gae beats he had brought from home, Heresought out the funk and Latin beats that werepopular in New York at the time. Becauseremixed instrumental versions o f singles had yetto be popularized in America, Campbell hadto buy records for whatever short sections ofrhythm and instrumental without vocals hecould find. In the process, he created what cameto be known as a "breakbeat." Playing thosesections repeatedly by bringing the needle onthe record player back to the same spot, or byswitching deftly between multiple records to keepthe beat goin g, Here imitated the instrumental'dub' versions which were growing in po pular-ity at the time he had left the island. M imickingthe early Jamaican sound system DJs, Kool Herebegan dropping in street slang above thesebeats, encourag ing those on the dance floor to"Rock on my mellow!"14 .

As Here's breakbeat style became morepopular, his technique also improved to thepoint where he was so busy switching between

records and keeping the beat going that hehired two MCs to take over the role of enter-tainer: talking over the beats and putting ondance shows for the crow d. This was an inter-esting alternative to the Jamaican case, in whichthe DJ left the record man ipulation t o the se-lector whiles/h e maintained the toasting role.However, the difference is true to a dis tinctionin musical focus between dancehall and hip

The relationship between rap anddancehall far predates the info-com revolution, and can be tracedbackwards from its currentpostmodern manifestations, tothe South Bronx in the 1970sand further, to music and ritualscreated In the days of slavery topre Middle-Passage West Africa.

hop: in danceh all, the rhythm tracks are pre-fabricated in the studio as dub versions, andthe DJ provides the spontaneous element w ithhis toasting. In h ip-ho p, by contrast, the rhythmtrack is often man ipulated live. The break beatpioneered by Here became the cornerstone ofhip-hop music and culture, laying the groun d-work for break dancing and rap.

Resistance and Complicity:Dancehall, Rap and the Ma r-ketKool Here's career, coupled with the ever-

growing Jamaican population in New YorkCity, began decades of largely undergroundcross-fert i l ization between hip hop anddancehall music. Because both rap anddancehall were organic inner-city creations andlargely uncon strained by the forma lities of themusic industry, this cross-fertilization had beenrelatively free of the weighty issues commo n inother world music creol izat ions. Thepopulations trading their cultural products wereequally disenfranchised, connected by imm i-gration and the partial democratization andapprop riation of first world technology, thus,

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the re lat ionship was f ree of the problemat icpower dynamics cr i t ics point to in other f i rstwor ld/ th i rd wor ld exchanges.

However , t imes have c hange d s ince the197 0s, and rap and danceha l l have both par -t ial ly eme rged fro m their subal tern or igins, andnow c i rculate as valuable com modi t ies in theglob al m arket . As the logic of la te c api ta l i smstretches and e xploi ts the circumstances w hichconnect the m, rap an d dance hal l are s imi lar lyst retched an d t ransformed, a nd , in some ways,their creat ivi ty is cons cr ipted in the on go ingproject of tota l i tar ian capi ta l i sm. Hip-ho p cu l -ture, in part icu lar , espe cial ly over the last fiveto ten years, has em erged as the loudest vo iceof Amer ican popular cul ture due, in par t , tothe mainstream record comp anies wh o saw thepotent ia l for capi ta l gain in the at t ract ion ofsuburban whi te Amer ican teenagers to themusic. With this relatively new develo pme nt hasemerge d the com mo n misconcept ion that rapwas expl ici t ly opposed to, and posi t ioned out-s ide of , the marketunt i l mainst ream at ten-t ion came along. The argument fo l lows thatrap has since been abso rbed into the m achin eof the popu lar music pro ject , and what beganas anti-establishmen t is now the establishment'smost pop ular a nd lucrat ive musical form . Thisis certainly t rue in part , b ut Rose does wel l toremind us that :

Hip hop's moment(s) of incorporationare a shift in the already existing relationshiphip hop has always had to the commodity sys-tem. For example, the hip hop DJ produces,amplif ies and revises already recorded sounds,rappers us e high-end microphones, and itwould be naive to think that [rappers] werenever interested in monetary compensationfor their work. If anything, black style throughhip hop has contributed to the continued AfroAmericanization of contemporary commercialculture. It is a common misperception amonghip hop artists and cu ltural c ritics that duringthe early days, hip hop was motivated bypleasure rather than profit, as if the two wereincomp atible. [The difference is that] duringthe late I970s and early 1980s, the marketfor hip hop was sti l l based inside New York'sblack and Hispanic comm unities ... [there hasbeen] a shi f t in control over the scope an ddirection of the profit-making process , out ofthe hands of local black and Hispanic entre-preneurs and into the hands of larger white-owned, multinational businesses'5.

Thou gh dance hal l has not been so radi -cal ly cent ra l ized, DJ Kiprich 's comm ercia l for

Mo ther 's C hicken (both radio an d TV versions)and the dance hal l -aping com mercia ls for Sing-ers and Lotto show the ways in wh ich dan ceh al lhas also been gradual ly enl isted in capi tal ism'sarmy. The Jamaican government has a lso or -ganized a new sub-commi t tee on music, some-how only recent ly real iz ing that the count ry 'smusic is among i ts most successful exports.Because of dancehal l and rap's commercia lv iabi l i t y , the former informal organizat ion ofmoney and power has largely been taken overby major recording labels and produc ers, ag ain ,to a greater extent in the case of hip hop.Thou gh the raw resources may st il l com e f r omthe ghe t t os o f Wes t K ings ton and Compton ,those resources are mined and marketed forprof i t by individuals far f rom those inner-ci tylocat ions. Man y DJs an d rappers have go t tenr ich " in the gam e," but they are a smal l minor -i ty. Sadly, however, the stor ies of the r ich andfamo us - such as Beenie Man and Jay Z - getthe most media at tent ion, creat ing the fa lseimpression that DJing or rapping is a v iableroute ou t of poverty. Thu s, the fairy tale nar ra-t ives of fantast ic weal th generated f rom verbalprowess obscure the cont inued st ructural op-pression and inequal i t y that keeps inner -c i tyyouth out of formal educat ion and the formaljob m arket . As bell hooks puts i t , consu mers,fans, ar t ists and cr i t ics al ike too of ten fai l tomake a " . . . correlat ion between the mainstreamhedonist ic consumer ism . . . and the rep roduc -t ion of a social system that perpetuates andmainta ins an underc lass" 16 . However, i t is im-portant to note that in Jamaica especial ly, thedancehal l industry, because of i t 's size andmult iple points of access, is a viab le, i f pa rt ial ,a l ternat ive eco nomy which ca n provide payingjobs at var ious levels to those who wouldn' totherwise have access to work. Individuals canwork as DJs, s ingers, soun d system o perato rs,promoters and producers in an arena whichremains largely unregu lated.

This ongoing re locat ion of dancehal l andhip hop from the marginal ized music of the poo rto the mainstream music of popu lar cul ture cre-ates new problems. As rap and dancehal l areever more b ou nd up in thei r nat ional and g lo-bal ec ono mie s, i t is impera t ive that ar t ists, cri t -ics and fans ask:

Who determines and inf luences popularculture? Does it emerge from the people, thegrass roots as autonomous expressions of theirreality and their modes of existence, or is ifimposed f r om above by people in posi t ions ofdominance . . . Is pop ular cul ture app ropr ia fed

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'by those in power for indoctrination o f a subgroup to domi-nant values and ideas, or as an instrum ent of resistance andopposition to dominance, or both?17 .

It is equa lly imp erative to interrogate the ways in whichthe com mod ification of these musics and their incorporationinto m ainstream popular culture has changed the power dy-namics between the two styles, and between the people andcultures that produce them. Is the influence of rap music ondancehall, and the influence of hip-hop culture on Jamaicanyouth culture, more generally, an imposition of hegemonicAmerican values and ideals? Or, does the relationship be-tween the musics and cultures of inner-city America and Ja-maica "serve as a conduit for ideas and images articulatingsubaltern sensitivities," crea ting its own resistant spaces thatdestabilize the dominant narratives of American capitalismand consumerism?18. O r are both true? The questions of howdance hall an d rap relate to their respective national econo-mies is directly linked to the question of how they in turn relateto one another in an outernational wa y." For example, somemight argue that within their respective countries, the creativ-ity and autonom y of ra p, and dancehall to a lesser extent, hasbeen subordinated to dom inant political or economic inter-ests, their messages "ble ach ed," and their content comp ro-mised in o rder not to offend or challenge the status quo. If thisis indeed the case, this com promised product does not neces-sarily serve the interests of the artists once it leaves nationalborde rs. Rather, it serves the interests of those hold ing poli ti-cal and economic power.

This is somewhat an oversimplification, since productssanctioned by those in power can nonetheless contain sub-versive or alternative messages20. Still, there is a propo rtionalrelationship insofar as the more a product is edited and man-age d by mainstream institutions, the less likely it is to containrevolutionary content, but the more likely it is to reach inter-national a udiences. Similarly, the more unde rground the pro-duction of the m usic, the more freedom the artists have tocreate messages of their o wn , but the less likely that the musicis to leave even the city in which it was made, let alone itsnational borders. Thus Shaggy's 'Hot Shot' album with itsdecidedly pop-influenced musical content (including a col-labo ration with Janet Jackson, amon g others) and mostly ro-mance-oriented lyrics will exceed p latinum status (i.e. sales of1,000,000 units), while Bounty Killer's w ork (perhaps the mostpopular DJ music in Jamaica) will have little or no main-stream Am erican media presence due to its emphasis on themesmainly relevant to the loca l Jam aican au dience. Similarly, R.Kelly, Jay Z and Destiny's C hild will get abundant radio andclub play in Jamaica because of their mainstream productionand marketing teams, while Dead Prez or Black Star (twoAmerican rap groups with explicitly Jamaican and Rastafari-inspired lyrical and musical content) remain entirely unknownon the island.

The question remains how can rappers and dancehallDJs attain the fin anc ial success they deserve while retainingthe artistic freedom that keeps their products challenging? Is tpossible to be creative and make money and to maintain

national and international followings at the same time? I con-clude with two opposing views on the topic :

[Spike] Lee's work cannot be revolutionary and gener-ate wealth at the same time. Many [critical thinkers, writers,academics and intellectuals] participate in the production andmarketing of black culture in ways that are co mplicit w ith theexisting oppressive structure. That complicity begins with theequation of black capitalism with black self-determination ...When the discourse of blackness is in no way connected oan effort to promote collective black self-determination it be-comes simply another resource appropriated by the colonizer.It then becomes possible for white suprema cist culture to be

Post-Colonial literature, Thirdcinema, and hip hop music allprotest against conditions createdby the oligopolies who distributethem as commodities for pro fit ...Yet it is exactly their desire towork through rather than outsideof existing structures that de-fines their utility as a model forcontemporary global politics ...perpetuated and maintained even as it appears to becomeinclusive ... The desire to be "down" has promoted a con-servative appropriation of specific aspects of underclass blacklife, whose reality is dehuma nized via a process ofcommodification wherein no correlation is made betweenmainstream hedonistic consum erism and the reproductionof a social system that perpetuates an d m aintains anunderclass.. Those of uswho are still working to [end] domi-nation in all its forms are working to protect a n alternativepolitics of representationworking to free the black imageso if [is] not enslaved to any exploitative or oppressiveagenda21

Oppositional practices among diasporic populationsemerge from pa inful experiences of labo r migrations, cul-tural imperialism, and political sub ordination. Yet they aredistinguished by an ability to work within these systems. Incontemporary culture, artists from aggrieved communitiesoften subvert or invert the very instruments of dominationnecessary for the creation of the new global ec onomy it'sconsum er goods, tech nologies and im ages. Post-Colonialliterature. Third cinem a, and hip hop music all protest againstconditions created by the oligopolies who distribute them ascomm odities for profit ...Yet it is exactly their desire to workthrough rather than outside of existing structures that definestheir utility as a model for contemporary global politics .. .On e might conclude that this reliance of post-colonial cul-

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ture on existing economic and cultural forms can at bestlead o nly to subordinate rather than autonomous reforms.That possibility certainly exists. But the desire to work throughexisting contradictions rather than to stand outside them rep-resents not so m uch a preference for melioristic reform overrevolutionary change, but rather a recognition of the mpos -sibility of standing outside totalitarian systems of domino-Won.22

ConclusionThis paper raises more questions than it offers answers.

Hopefully, however, this overview of the ways rap and dancehallrelate to one another can stand on its own as a preliminarytheoretica l explora tion. As music touches all of our lives, weare all implicated in the power dynamics inherent in our ownconsumption of it, and as the world's m arket gets smaller,hopefully its ears will gro w bigger as the interaction betweenmusics of the world intensifies.GRNotes1 Every night at Asylum has a musical theme. Thursdays are devotedexclusively to dancehall music.2 Stoizoff, Norman. 2000. Wake the Town and Tell he People: DancehallCulture in Jamaica. Durham: Duke University Press, pg.230-2453 Lipsitz, George. 1994. Dangerous Crossroads: Popular Music,Postmodernism an d he Poetics of Place. London: Verso.pg.74 Skyjuice, Selector for multimedia,quoted in Chude-Sokei, Louis. 1995."Postnationalist Geographies: Rasta, Ragga and Reinventing Africa ." In ChrisPotash (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 modernstate or from secure institutional locations within the culture industries."(Gilroy, Paul.1994."After the Love Has Gone':Biopolitics and the Decay of theBlack Public Sphere" in Against Race: Imagining Political Culture Beyond theColor Line. Cambridge:Hatvard University Press, pg.76.6 Chude-Sokei, Louis. 1995. "Postnationalist Geographies: Rasta, Ragga andReinventing Africa." In Chris Potash (ed.) Reggae, Rasta, Revolution:Jamaican Music from Ska to Dub. New York: Schirmer Books.' ib id, 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 an d Use. Bailey and Baugh, pg.2709 Brathwaite, Edward Kamau. 1973. The Arrivants. A New World Trilogy.London: Oxford University Press.pg.270.10 Rose, Tricia. 1994. Black Noise: Rap Music an d Black Culture nContemporary 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 insome way. This music is then opposed to "culture" music, which would bethe tradition continuing out of the roots reggae of the 70s, which takesRastafari, Africa, and spiritual and social uplittment as its main themes.Though these two ypes of music certainly exist and are distinct fromoneanother, divisions are never that clear and there are always gray areas.BobMarley sang about sex ust like Bounty Killer DJs aboutGod12 Bilby, Kenneth. 1995. "Chapter 7: Jamaica" in Caribbean Currents:Caribbean Music from Rumba to Reggae. Philadelphia: Temple UniversityPress, pg.177.13 Perkins, William Eric. 1996. Droppin' Science: Critical Essays in Rap

Music and Hip Hop Culture. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.pg.5"Hebdige, Dick. Cut N" Mix Culture15 Rose, Tricia. Black Noise, pg.4O.16 hooks, bell. 1994. "Spending Culture: Marketing the Black Underclass" inOutlaw Culture: Resisting Representations. New York: Routledge,pg.15217 Adjaye, Joseph K. 1997. "Introduction: Popular Culture and he BlackExperience." 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,pg318 Lipsitz, George. 1994. Dangerous Crossroads: Popular Music,Postmodernisman d he Poetics of Place. London: Verso, pg.36.19 "outemational" is a relexification of the word "international" common is thespeech of Rastafarians. For a discussion of Rasta language, See VelmaPollard's Dread Talk.20Lipsitz, George. 1994. Dangerous Crossroads: Popular Music,Postmodernisman d he Poetics of Place. London: Verso, pg.99.21 hooks,bell.1994. "Spending Culture: Marketing the Black Underclass."22 Lipsitz, George. Dangerous Crossroads, pg 34.

Acknowledgements1 would like to thank the University of the West Indies, specifically DeanPereira and the Cultural Studies program, for including me n their seminar. Iwould also like to thank Michael Veal for his support, encouragement and workon 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 EducationLtd.Davis, Erik. 2001. "Roots and Wires: Polyrhythmic Cyberspace and he BlackElectronic" from www.levity .comDevonish, Hubert. "Electronic Orature"Fanon, Franz. 1965. The Wretchedof the Earth. London: Penguin Publishers.Foucault, Michel. Truth and Power." In Colin Gordon (ed.) Power Knowledge:Selected Interviews an d Other Writings, 1972-1977, Pantheon.Gilroy, Paul. 1994. "After the Love Has Gone' : Biopolitics and he Decay of theBlack Public Sphere" in Against Race: Imagining Political Culture Beyond theColor Line. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.- 1993. The Black Atlantic: Modernity and Double Consciousness.Cam-bridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press.Gonzales, Michael A. and Havelock Nelson. 1991. Bring the Noise: A Guide toRap Music and Hip Hop Culture. New York: Harmony Books.Jackson Jr., John L. 1997. "The Soles of Black Folk: These Reeboks WereMade for Runnin1 (From the White Man)." In (eds.) Judith Jackson FossettandJeffery A. Tucker Race Consciousness: African-American Studies for theNew Century. New York: New York University PresMorgan, Marcyliena. 1998. "More Than a Mood or an Attitude: Discourse andVerbal Genres in African-American Culture" In (eds.) Mufwene, Rickford,African-American English: Structure, History an d 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, an d Sound:Black Popular Cultures Into the Twenty-First Century. Pittsburgh: University ofPittsburgh Press.Sartre, Jean-Paul. 1963. Preface to Fanon's The Wretched of the Earth.London: Penguin Books.2 Stoizoff, Norman. 2000. Wake the Town an d Tell the People: DancehallCulture in Jamaica. Durham: Duke University Press.Trouillot, Michel Rolph. "The Caribbean Region: An Open Frontier inAnthropological Theory" in Annual Review of Anthropology. 1992. 21: 19-42,

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