No culture is more modern than the Dancehall scene of Jamaica
Some days want You just crawl on the couch with a cup of hot chocolate, a cozy blanket and shoot yourself in pieces.
At those moments I usually turn to the only cultural top list that really means something: the list of DN culture of the best of the week … Sorry, I mean the most played singles at the moment in Kingston, Jamaica.
While I write this, lies Masickas “Mute”, but while publishing it certainly dominates something else. The list is reformed at a pace that is suitable for those who have to handle their existence several times a week.
In the 1920s, the Dancehall scene of Jamaica again developed into one of the most interesting and yes, modern! – Art forms.
In Kingston has The album format never dominated. The album, as well as the novel and the feature film, is a template made to serve in the logic of capital accumulation. Higher price, more units, longer lifespan; Minutious format according to the needs of the Western distribution chains. A model that is based on the fact that a few can create something that many have to consume. Instead, the sound system culture in Jamaica has been formed by a running need for new music – fast, changing and dancing. The seventy single was both cheaper and in this context more functional. The full format of the length mainly a luxury product for an economic Crossfitad international audience with collective objects.
When the global music market has focused more on singles than on albums – we are undoubtedly now in such an age – Dancehall has escalated in influence. Note how the biggest hit of last year, Kendrick Lamars “Not Like US”, picks up his very onomatopoetic soundscape from the Kingston rapper Skillibengs “Wap wap”.
Of course Bowes has already gone in with the Jamaica government
Still I stand Here with two newly released Jamaican full lengths: Pumpkin “Hate being famous” and above all, Valiants “Prove that they are wrong”. The latter is actually mentioned Raheem Bowesis 26 years old and is one of the big name of the modern dance hall.
Of course Bowes has already gone in with the government of Jamaica. Minister of information Robert Morgan Has warned that the breakthrough of Valiant “Dunce Check” – a kind of vocal exercise about lottery fraud – makes it “attractive to be ignorant”.
Well, in such cases I am happy to be stupid as a goose.
“Prove that they are wrong” Standing on the shoulders of the bumping tradition of the American hip hop, as well as the homemade sound of the British rap, the romance of violence in Autotune and Sugar Card, while it could not come from the world anywhere else than Jamaica. It is art that ignores boundaries and sabotages expectations. Such things that make life worth living.
Internship Art Pod: The Crit Circle
Cool performing arts and crying critics
1:24:59
