Dancehall Music 101 - An Urban Folk Music Genre

When you get to talking about genres of world music, you often come across the distinction between rural folk music and urban folk music. Neither one is more or less authentic, but they do tend to have different sources, motivations, and obviously, sounds. Rural folk genres include Jamaican mento, Hawaiian slack key guitar, and old-time music. Urban genres tend to be slightly more contemporary (as is, naturally, the very concept of urbanity) - they include Algerian rai, Portuguese fado, and hip-hop.

Jamaican dancehall falls into the latter category. It's a folk genre, that, like hip-hop, encompasses not only a sound, but an entire culture. The dancehall culture is, of course, controversial (particularly for lyrical content which is often heavily misogynistic and homophobic), but still worth studying and noticing. Lyrical content tends to be a window into the hardships and sorrows (as well as joys and opportunities) of a culture, and though I tend to find the "slack" (dirty) lyrics of many dancehall songs personally offensive, I can't see how ignoring the artistic output of a huge community actually solves any problems. And the many dancehall songs which are not offensive are totally addictive - the sound of the music is really compelling. What are your feelings about listening to dancehall? Is it worth throwing the baby out with the bathwater in order to avoid the negativity of so many dancehall artists, or do you simply take the bad with the good and go for it? Leave a comment and tell us what you think!