Dancehall is a genre of Jamaican popular music that developed in the late 1970s, initially as a more sparse and less political and religious variant of reggae than the roots style that had dominated much of the 1970s.
In the mid-1980s, digital instrumentation became more prevalent, changing the sound considerably, with digital dancehall (or "ragga") becoming increasingly characterized by faster rhythms with little connection to earlier reggae rhy...
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Dancehall is a genre of Jamaican popular music that developed in the late 1970s, initially as a more sparse and less political and religious variant of reggae than the roots style that had dominated much of the 1970s.
In the mid-1980s, digital instrumentation became more prevalent, changing the sound considerably, with digital dancehall (or "ragga") becoming increasingly characterized by faster rhythms with little connection to earlier reggae rhythms.
Dancehall owes its moniker to the spaces in which popular Jamaican recordings were aired by local sound systems and readily consumed by its "set-to-party" patronage; commonly referred to as "dance halls". Social and political changes in late-1970s Jamaica were reflected in the shift away from the more internationally-oriented roots reggae towards a style geared more towards local consumption, and in tune with the music that Jamaicans had experienced for some time when sound systems performed live. Michael Manley's socialist PNP...
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