Memories In Playback

Introduction

Bran’ New Stile

(Originally written August 2005)

In a culture marred by unrest and impermanence, memory assumes sacred meaning.  Dancehall, a product of Downtown Kington’s socio-economic frustration and historic blackness, is a site of recognition and recollection.  The dance exists wherever the boxes of drinks are stacked high, the men post-up, the women bruck out, the soundmen clash, and the speakers create a wall of sound.  To the initiated, there is instant familiarity in the cued moving of hips, waiving of hands, and pointing of fingers.  To the initiated, wherever the space lands is where memory unfolds.

Dancehall is a new and exciting cultural minefield.  Over the last decade scholars have dissected dancehall under various theoretical lenses in an effort to contextualize the socio-economic, gender, lyrical/lingual, performative and stylistic aspects of this phenomenon.  Even though work on dancehall is continuously evolving, critical visual critiques are consistently missing from the greater body of scholarship.  This brief paper is an attempt to expand the dialogue to include the astonishing video-based corps which has developed within dancehall.  This essay will also investigate the role this image corps has played in reinforcing dancehall’s influence as a cultural phenomenon. 

I wish to note the methodological obstacles I had in writing this text.  Visual critique of dancehall imagery is virtually non-existent, the critical text dealing with coloured bodies owning imaging technologies focus almost exclusively on film and/or photography, and scholarship on video is generally unpoliticized in respect to coloured bodies. 

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Section I

Memories

Memories don’ live like people do, dey always memba you, wheda tings are good ar bad, its jus di memories dat you ‘ave. 

- Beenie Man, “Stop Live Inna Di Past”

My earliest memory of dancehall is the most vivid.  I was nine, my mother and her friends gathered in her bedroom, noisily preparing for the evening.  They blasted music, dancing as they held their outfits up to their necks, showing off their choice for the evening.  They jokingly poked and prodded each other, giggling like girls at their inside jokes.  One by one, they changed out of their sweatpants, batty riders and tights into their dresses, skirts, and pants.  Their otherwise dull and plain faces were now well-light, flawless and colorful.  The weaves they spent half the day on, were slowly combed out from underneath stocking caps and tie-’eads.  

As a band of sisters, they stepped out of the house, in Kohl-rimmed eyes, blue shadows, and rouge.  They dressed in reds and purples, electric blues and metallic blacks, neon greens and hot pinks.  Huge pendants and thick chains hung heavily from their necks while brilliant gems cascaded from their ears, chapparitas of every design rested lightly on their ankles and bangles jingled up their forearms.  I watched their designer clad feet disappear into familiar cars, driving my own excitement and anticipation.  I don’t remember when they returned, but the next morning I found Polaroids on my mom’s dresser….

I watched my mom, and her friends get ready for dances for months after that.  While the friends changed now and again; the routine remained the same.  The Polaroids piled up and after each dance, I made my own ritual in honor of the mysterious events by placing them strategically between the frames of my mom’s dresser mirror….

I can never recall the time between the Polaroids and my first video. I only remember sitting down with my aunt and her younger crowd of friends in the living room one evening.  Ten years younger than my mom and her crew, my aunt’s posse could not finance the types of dances my mom and her friends frequented, so they watched videotaped recordings of the dances instead.    

Enter the dancehall.  A fluorescent cloud hovers above the cramped room.  From an unassuming corner, a heavy bass pours out onto the floor, jumping off the walls and bouncing off slick bodies.  A far-off sound booth casts a sheet of light over the room, barely reaching all corners.  A bright light weaves through the crowd, stopping shortly in front of people before darting to other bodies….

The room was filled to capacity with people and music.  Women wore these outrageous wigs in every neon color imaginable with black and white stripped  stockings and patent leather clothes.  Men were practically hunched over with gold and shining with diamonds.  The camera never sat still and moved unevenly through the crowd stopping here and there to focus on a person or two.  As if  almost out of no where, the camera landed in what looked like the middle of the floor with two fierce women dancing-off.  I remember being doubly shocked by the sheer acrobatic ability of these women and the whiteness of one.  I was so intrigued by this white woman on screen that I only noticed the glimmer of her competitor’s metallic teal outfit.  This fascinating woman, with dirty blond locs so long they fell past her behind, was dancing with each leg straddled on a Heineken bottle.  After a whole mess of antics, she won the dance-off.   

This tape was drastically different from the fake waterfalls and lackluster red carpet of my mother’s instant images.  Before, I had stiff smiles and contrived poses, now, these tapes revealed a space complete with a sea of sound and bodies moving freely around each other.  It was all so much to process as I sat uninvited to this adult viewing party watching a whole world erupt on the television.

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Section II

Cultural Producers

—-

Cultural Products

Telling ‘truth’ is not telling it as one actually saw it but as one sees fit to tell it. 

- Treshome H. Gabriel, “Ruin and The Other”

In every respect, dancehall video signifies an insurmountable will to survive.  From the ghetto men who employ technical skill and street sensibility and credibility to establish themselves as videographers, to the women who emerge as stars on tapes, to the widespread distribution and collection of tapes across an impressive Diaspora, dancehall tapes preserve eras and individuals within a tightly knit community.  For many involved in the Downtown dancehall scene, these tapes provide an essential communal link.  In true Jamaican style, these tapes are a cultural phenomenon not to be upstaged by other modes of image production.    

Some of the earliest dancehall footage dates back to the 1970s when cameras were introduced into the space.  Initially, early experimenters were discouraged from recording the space in order to protect socially accepted criminals and to maintain a sense of privacy and safety for patrons.[1]  As imaging technology improved and the cost of making non-professional videos decreased, moving image technology was more accessible to Downtowners and emigrant Jamaicans.  The drug-inspired economic boom of the 80s fostered a shift in dancehall in which modelin became prevalent.[2]  The proliferation of video cameras in dancehall paralleled the rise in modelin, which in turn supported a new market for videos documenting the dancehall and these never-before-seen extravagant displays of dress and accoutrements.[3]

Dancehall moving image has matured from simple amateur explorations of the 70s to concretized cultural products within a structured framework of image-production.  The expansion of the market across countries occurred alongside the cultivation of a highly stylized visual representation.  Additionally, this distinct style that developed out of the 80s drastically set dancehall video apart from other known forms of video-based representation.[4]     

Because of their mass distribution, dancehall videos employ more creative expression than traditional home videos such as wedding videos; however, since they are recorded by self-taught professionals on magnetic strips, they do not carry the same aesthetic weight as film.  Dancehall videographers do not necessarily produce work with political or scholastic intent, so the works are not viewed with the same conceptual complexity as that of video artists.  However, dancehall videos have appeared in broadcast video and television throughout the Diaspora within the context of specialized programming for Jamaican and the broader Caribbean communities.  Furthermore, the videos center on black bodies that have existed on the periphery of respectable society for centuries and they are viewed by those same bodies without much interruption from outsiders.[5]   

To fully understand dancehall video’s stylization and social role in the Diaspora, it is imperative that it is viewed as a charged cultural product.  Anthropologist Maureen Mahon identifies cultural products as “visible evidence of social processes and social relations” rooted in “sites of social reproduction and … potential sites of social transformation.”  She goes on to characterize cultural producers as social actors who represent the social reproductions of aesthetics, ideological perspectives, and hegemonic paradigms while providing a site for potential social transformation.[6]

Mahon defines cultural producers as individuals who “through their narrative and images …create new subjects and new subjectivities by articulating shared experiences and constructing social identities” since “people who historically have been marginalized from institutional power create self-representations of their groups—both idealized and accurate—to counter widely disseminated negative images, the absence of images, and images produced by outsiders”. [7]  In dancehall, videographers are the cultural producers who operate the technology that generates the coveted video images as cultural products while retaining active membership in the community.  

As cultural products, these tapes are shot on location and serve as authentic recordings which transport articulations of Jamaican identity.[8]  The tapes are a part of an intricate system of cultural distribution.  They are exported from Kingston in a consistent manner, reaching the main Jamaican outposts in London, Miami, New York, and Toronto.  In the various cities the tapes are sold in Jamaican specialty stores and by nomadic (street side) vendors.[9]  While in transit, the tapes participate in the conversations characteristic of diasporic communities facilitated by the vendors who stock the tapes and clients who come to expect the scheduled arrival of tapes.  Often, the vendors and consumers have relationships which they trace back to Jamaica, so the tapes assume added significance because they are reference points for events, locations, and individuals from the homeland.  

Consumers acquiring these tapes know of the various dances, quality of production, and regularly seek out weekly dances held in Kingston, special annual affairs, birthday bashments, and notable anniversaries.[10]  

Just as moviegoers follow certain studios and their production styles, participants in this community follow certain videographers and the work generated by their studios.[11]  Videographers are some of the most influential cultural producers in the Jamaican context since their work is recognized by thousands of members in the dancehall community.  Exclusively male, videographers have generated product for more than 20 years.[12]  Their work has documented every major shift in ghetto livity, western-centric fashion, music, dance, and Jamaican economics.  

The videographers are also powerful producers who preserve events that are impossible to replicate, thus elevating them to celebrity status in dancehall.  Conversations with veteran videographer Jack Sowah have demonstrated the power these men know they have at their disposal.  Fully aware that his work contains irreproducible events and images of individuals’ necessary to dancehall’s collective memory, he stated, “mi ave cassette in deh weh mi caan show yu, weh dem tings deh caan gwaan a dance again cauh seventi-five percent a dem man deh dead off”.[13]  For Sowah, his pride is grounded in the role he plays as the one who, through his video work, has kept the memory of deceased members of the dancehall community alive on tape.  The real effect of Sowah’s practice is evident when his catalog is viewed as an interconnected body of work.  His collection has followed individuals and their development in the dancehall community and viewers are able to trace members over the course of several years and in some cases, decades.  

Like every other videographer, from the earliest dances of his career right through to the present, Sowah has consciously worked to shape dancehall representations.  Video has served as a potent tool for visualizing social mobilization and transformation within the community.  Videographers aggressively search for the most exclusive in dancehall to shape their narrative.  The intent is to inspire their market to replicate the contents of the tapes and constantly purchase new works to stay abreast of trends.  Because dancehall is so dynamic and all the players are so tightly intertwined, videographers are able to maximize their power as cultural producers only when social actors cognizant of their role as people who are videoed, and the resulting effect they have on video as the cultural product and are present and active in the dance.

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Section III

Step Up Inna Di Video Light

The entrance of the video camera has assisted in the transformation of the ordinary into the fantastic through adopting masks more ready for the screen.  The ‘video light’ has played a significant role in shining selves into stardom.

- Sonjah Stanley, “Kingston’s Dancehall”

Once the competition ended and the crowd dispersed, the video camera started flitting through the space again, casually landing here and there.  Whenever the camera stopped, the glaring light exposed whoever it fell upon.  Sometimes, they hid, covering their faces with their hands and forearms, looking away from the camera, quickly moving behind another person.  Other times, they maintained their position, some danced for the camera and others demanded the camera’s attention, speaking loudly and moving excitedly.  

In dancehall, both physically and culturally, the video light is omnipotent.  The camera’s ability to cast light on, to in effect expose and reveal people and actions in a shared space makes it an object that is both feared and revered in otherwise dark dancehalls.  The videographer secures power in this space through operating the video camera, and ultimately the video light.   In this environment, videographers are cultural producers, videotapes are cultural products, and dancehall patrons are the social actors who double as producers through their actions.  

Standing in full view of the video light is an immense challenge.  The glaring light of the video camera demands confidence in one’s visual presentation, the ability to articulate one’s uniqueness, connections to people and places outside one’s ghetto, and the courage to speak words that will be embedded in a collective memory.     

Within the dance, the patrons also exert some control over the video light.  No dance is complete without the hype.  The videographer goes in search of the hype and in the mix, enters an elaborate exchange with patrons and the video light.  Some individuals are known for their willingness to step into the sphere of the video light at any given moment.  These individuals readily address the camera by speaking, dancing, and posing.  These actors have memorized their scripts and are able to deliver the prefab performance on cue.  The dance’s dons, divas, and dancers all infuse the space with the look, attitude, and elation necessary to make the event successful.[14]  These patrons are the ones modelin the expensive clothing and jewelry, they are the ones buying liquor by the case, and they are the ones who step out to gi dem di style.  

In an essay on dance culture in the U.K. and U.S., Tom Jennings unpacks the significance of dance spaces writing, “the dance context is standing for society in general—a functional, public, community space, hedged in by institutional constraints and social conflict, to be sure, but where collective cultural expression and personal fulfillment is still possible”.[15]  Dancehall serves this same purpose for members of the Diaspora, thus making the series of events that occur within each dance a performance that challenges notions of community and expression.  

The notion of performance in a shared cultural space is paramount.  According to Belinda Edmonson, “’performance’ implies agency, an act meant to do particular kinds of work or make particular kinds of statements”.[16]  In dancehall, the performances of the social actors contend outsider representations of lower-class Black Jamaicans while presenting a model for social advancement that is acknowledged by members of the larger Jamaican community.  

As members of the dancehall community, patrons are keenly aware of their presence on tape.  They “self-consciously use the media … to critique[s] the social terrain they inhabit and the social verities they inherit”.[17]  Social actors participate in these exchanges with the videographer and video light in order to gain power and recognition within and beyond the dancehall space.  

The intricate performances involved on a tape heighten the hyper-masculinity and strength of the dons, they further the sexuality and desirability of the divas and it creates awe around the women and men who dance the space into existence.  These performances serve as elaborate collective fantasies in which actors choose their lot through language and movement.  Acting before a camera enables the illiterate ghetto man, the victim of domestic abuse, and the low-wage laborer to rewrite the way they are remembered within the dancehall community.

Similar to other shared cultural spaces and phenomenon, dancehall has a highly developed system of interaction.  Sonjah Stanley elaborates on dancehall as a structured institution writing, 

           The dance is not just an event; it is a system of rules and codes, an

            institution.  Women adorn themselves according to the dictates of the 

            current dancehall fashion.  Patrons are aware of the latest dance moves, 

            latest songs, debates, and artistes.  There are salutations, tributes, and 

            paying of respect.[18]

Important dances and affairs call for outlandish fashion, so patrons often highlight their outfits in the video light.  Women turn before the camera and show off their clothing from various angles to emphasize designers and their own ability to wear high fashion well.  At these types of dances, when songs are played that stress women wearing their own clothing or going abroad to shop, these same women step into the camera’s point of view, demanding attention to their outfits and their ownership of it.  Men at these dances frequently assume a rude boy stance—shoulders leaned back, hip forward, one leg pointing out to highlight their footwear—to give off a cool and collected aura.  

Weekly Kingston dances, which are smaller than large affairs, often center on playing chart-topping music and showcasing dancing styles.  At these events men and women both vie for the videographer’s attention as they dance solo, in groups, or informally against each other.  For women, the most outrageous bubblin is necessary to get the camera’s focus and women climb on speaker boxes, go down to the floor, jump on cars, and go on their head-tops in attempt to outperform all others.  Men are usually in groups dancing in a line or in a call and response to a step leader.  The male dance-offs are often routine-oriented, and less competitive than female dance-offs.  Although men and women are often together in same-sex clusters, women and men couples will whine (also spelled wine and wain) together during slow sets and sporadically throughout the dance.[19]    

While the patrons are moving their bodies, their mouths are moving as well.  When people are not singing aloud to the tunes the selector is rotating, they are talking excitedly in groups, or directly addressing the camera.  Arguably, the act of speaking in the dance takes precedence over dancing.  Even while focusing on dancing, patrons are seen emphatically singing along with the music that moves them in that moment.  Oftentimes, a song is played that will trigger a flood of responses from the audience.  For women the songs about the matey, or the frenimi, make them jump into the center, arms flailing and feet shuffling.  Men get riled up over the lyrics about ghetto life, gangsterism, and sexual prowress, leaping in the dance and swinging their torsos wildly.  American Classic soul, new school R&B, and cultural roots reggae lyrics are often accompanied by pursed lips, knitted brows, and closed eyes; men and women alike rock to these beats, bouncing lightly or rotating hips with expert precision.  When the boomshells are dropped hands fly up in the air with lighters or pointed fingers.  As these songs are playing, patrons are singing along, polishing their dancing with the emotion behind familiar music.  

Even more powerful than reiterating lyrics that reflect one’s current or desired reality is stating one’s current or desired reality.  Addressing the camera is perhaps the patron’s single most important act.  Patrons talk up inna di video in order to show their comfort in being seen.  The individuals who speak directly into the camera are able to tell the viewer their story as they see fit.  Patrons regularly name themselves before the camera and where they are from.  They reach out to loved ones, calling them by name and proudly disclosing their locations.  These individuals assert themselves before the camera and the identity they assume in the space—women boastfully declare themselves recipients of amorous affection from men in their lives, men often shout out their friends and ‘hoods.  

Patrons big-up their connections throughout the Diaspora, “hail up mi auntie Pinkie inna Flatbush”, “Big up Lenkie, mi babi-fadda an love af mi live”, “Respect to Bounti, im a di real man, straight” and countless other salutations occur throughout the dance.  Women often call attention to their friends— “big up Jackie, cah she a gooddas”, and men to theirs— “big up Mickie, im a di big man from mahnin”.  The combination of image, movement, and sound make this ideal for transporting the dance throughout the Diaspora and memorializing participants in the process.  

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Section IV

Chat Back

When individuals are depicted within the [video] formula to the outsider they look like simple men and women, but to the insider they are identified as individuals.

- Sean Cubitt, Videography

 My aunt and her friends talked excitedly as they watched the dance. Without fail, they commented on every person the video light fell on.  They seemed to know just about everyone in the dance, where they lived in Jamaica, and where they lived at the time.  One friend, whose memories of Jamaica seemed most intact, constantly recalled stories and incidents involving the people on screen.  With each story, my aunt and her crew laughed out loud, made slick comments, and rude remarks.  They discussed the outfits people wore as though they were red carpet commentators and anyone who had not stepped up in their best was quickly cut down.  They listened to the music and attempted to decipher new lyrics.  They watched the dances closely, teaching one another in turn.  They stopped and rewound the tape a thousand times to catch every interesting word and complicated movement.  When they finally reached the end, they put it down so they could watch it all over again.   All of this was so that they could keep up to the time.      

The week that followed my visual initiation into dancehall videos was fascinating.  My aunt and her friends changed their hair to match the styles on the video.  They went shopping for Americanized versions of the outfits they saw on the tape.  I even started to mimic the slang my aunt mimicked from the tape.  My fondest memory of it all was learning how to do the head top—to do a shoulder stand against the wall, and whine while keeping the soles of my feet together.  While I could not replicate every move the dreadloc’d woman made, I felt proud that I had mastered at least one of the dances.

….

Each dancehall video is an effective tool for transnational communication because “to the participants, this specific videotape is unique: precisely rendering the behaviour of named and known people, including themselves”.[20]  The tapes are produced within a framework that is instantly recognizable to members of this community and effectively transmit messages to informed viewers.  In his text on the role of video in disseminating and preserving culture, Sean Cubitt writes, “there are two key functions: to bring into the family circle people who couldn’t attend the event (but who can be trusted to recognize a useful proportion of the people shown there) and to help participants remember”.[21]  In dancehall, the “family” extends beyond localized biological ties and includes individuals from countless blood clans, ghettoes, eras, and social positions.  The videos that are produced within dances successfully bridge relations that have been broken because of migration, time, and absence.  These videos continue to keep the Diaspora intact by fostering the memorialization of people and events.  

Video’s dual role as technology that promises presence while presenting absence[22] is integral to the way memory is constructed in the dancehall Diaspora.  In the case of the deceased, the tapes bring to viewers, people with whom they once shared experiences.  Regardless of the age of the tape, the people on it are there and moving around, paradoxically, the individuals who appear on the screen are no longer the same.  These individuals have stopped being active in the viewers’ life and all that remains are remnants of the lives they once lived.  Individuals who have left the dancehall community for reasons ranging from religion, to social mobilization, to age, continue to redefine themselves while the tapes concurrently betray a part of the life they once lived.  For people active in the dancehall community, their presence on tape still contradicts their present position since their evolution runs parallel to dancehall’s progression and while tapes are stuck in a time vault, these individuals are not.  Actors who live on beyond the time of a tape are present and absent each time that tape is viewed because the recording captured them in a particular moment from which they have moved away from, regardless if the recording is 20 minutes or 20 years old.  

Arguably, everyone who participates in the making and viewing of dancehall tapes understands that there is a layer of falsity.  After all, the tapes present life in playback and memories that are subject to the videographer, editor, performer, and viewer.  However, the possibility of inaccuracy in the tapes does not inhibit participants from relying on the tapes as sources of visual and actual truth.  According to Cubitt, “there is something specific to the viewing situation that determines the meaning of the video, just as much as the video itself determines the kind of viewing that is possible”.[23]  In dancehall, viewing videos is as much a cultural contributor as recording and performing on tapes.  The videos are intended to be interactive.  Videographers look for the hype in the dance because it will make the tape a great commodity.  Social actors gravitate toward the camera because they know they will be recorded and thus seen and remembered.  Viewers watch the tapes to decipher the codes sent by the performers and to strengthen their links in the Diaspora.  These tapes exist as translators of experiences from their initial recording to their up-to-the-minute viewing.    

In addressing the distinction between watching video and watching film, Douglas Davis writes, video “approaches the pace and predictability of life, and is seen in a perceptual system grounded in the home and the self”.[24]  In dancehall, it is in the room with other viewers, seated before a screen that the final connections between people, places, and events are made.  

Dancehall video is not complete without the commentary from viewers and the correlations they make between themselves and performers.  The viewers and performers are often one in the same, thus in viewing tapes and discussing the actions of others, participants are better able to construct their performances on video.  Watching tapes with other participants fosters greater dialogue around what is occurring on screen—the associations of another viewer are as important as the actions on the tape.  It is the multiple conversations that arise in viewing individual tapes that are necessary to the collective memories of the dancehall Diaspora.  

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Section V

Memories In Playback

History is hysterical: it is constituted only if we consider it, only if we look at it— and in order to look at it, we must be excluded from it. 

- Roland Barthes, Camera Lucida

The possibilities are limitless when a subculture owns the means of production for its own visual body.  Beyond documentation of events, dancehall video empowers black ghetto people to reconstruct their representation.  This auto(cultural)critography[25] is an act of transgression that reinscripts centuries of mislabeling and enables participants to tell their story as they would have it told.  These tapes are cultural products that are exported, traded, and archived for the purpose of sharing memories within a subculture that relies on the power of recognition as a tool for social transformation.  By recording dancehall, videographers become cultural powerbrokers with a commodity that generates income; tapes are cultural products that contain within them unique events that cannot be reproduced and memorable people who cannot be replaced; performers and viewers are participants that double as cultural producers for their sheer ability to create and contextualize what is viewed on screen.  

Video is a type of “representation as a guarantee of the reality”.[26]  Dancehall recordings are in effect, reality for those who view it.  These tapes are reality because they reflect the image participants selected.  There is truth in the struggle of these individuals and the dancehall as a space to free oneself from the constraints of ghetto life.  Images produced within this space result directly from participants’ desires to create new representations of self and these images contain within them participants’ alternate personas.  

The history that is constituted within these tapes is accurate even though everyone involved is continuously excluded from it.  The diva from California, California 1999 goes back to being a working mother with three children after the three-hour, thirty-minute recording stops.  The don from Willie Hoggart Boat Ride moved from Jungle to the Bronx and has a restaurant on Gun Hill Road.  The videographer who won numerous awards from members of the dancehall community is now married and living in Bermuda.  What remains of them are the characters they acted out on tape, roles that are permanent even beyond the videos collecting dust on the top shelf of the closet.  In the end, the memories are constantly in playback and through these memories, which live longer that people do, dancehall culture and its community continues to exist.   

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Footnotes

[1] Tanika Williams, Interview with Jack Sowah, March 22, 2004. 

[2] Modelin’ was coined to explain the flashy style that emerged in the early 90s.  The shift in style consisted of an unprecedented display of designer clothing, customized jewelry, cars, and expensive beverages in the dancehall.  

[3] Tanika Williams, Interview with Jack Sowah, March 22, 2004.   

[4] The distinct formula for dancehall video was developed to meet the aesthetic needs and visual challenges of the space and is not applicable to other styles of video.

[5] It is important to remember that dancehall videos are also circulated world-wide and purchased by tourists visiting Jamaica and individuals who are not apart of the community referenced here.  

[6] Maureen Mahon, “The Visible Evidence of Cultural Producers.” Annual Review of Anthropology (2000): 467.

[7] Mahon, “The Visible Evidence,” 470.

[8] Dancehall participants use “video” and “tape” interchangeably.  

[9] The market for dancehall video is extensive and a number of stores retail large catalogs.  In New York major vendors include Super Power Records, Moodies Records, Music Factory, VP Records, Jah Life Records, and International Records amongst countless others.  In addition to stores, in diasporic communities, street vendors often walk along major avenues selling products or set up temporary outlets from which they offer products.   

[10] In Downtown Kingston dances are held throughout the week.  Consistent dances include, Hot Monday’s, Chacka Chacka Tuesdays, Early Wednesdays, Passa Passa Wednesdays, Wedi Wednesday, Early Thursday’s, and Love Sunday in Bull Bay.  Frequent boat rides and pool parties also occur.  British Link-Up, California California, Premiere, Jim Brown Memorial, Willie Hoggart Memorial, and Wet Wet are popular annual dances.  Stone Love, Winston Merritone, and Bobby Condas have some of the larger anniversaries throughout the Diaspora.  Angela Striker, Spongebob, and Big Bellie Derrick, host large birthday bashments yearly.      

[11] Jack Sowah, Video Man Al, Keeling Records, and Night Rider have some of the oldest video production studios.  In addition to selling videos from their studios and website (in the case of Night Rider), their products are also featured in the stores of New York landmark vendors such as Moody’s and VP.  

[12] Conversations with several authorities in New York and Jamaica on the first appearances of dancehall videos on the market have yielded inconsistent results so I am applying a negotiated time frame of 20 years that reflects everyone’s input.  According to Jack Sowah, Victor Johnson was one of the first videographers to begin working in the early 80s.  

[13] Tanika Williams, Interview with Jack Sowah, March 22, 2004.

[14] Dons, divas, and dancers all play roles under the sub-text of social actors.  Dons are men from the dancehall community whose statuses are based on power, economics, and/or criminal activity.  Divas are the women who utilize their desirability to exert sexual power and financial muscle in the dancehall.  The roles of dancers vary greatly from dance to dance and range from actors who simply bubble during a session to professional performers who showcase the latest dance moves.

[15] Tom Jennings, “Dancehall Dreams.” Variant 2 (2004): 9.

[16] Belinda Edmonson, “Public Spectacles: Caribbean Women and the Politics of Public Performance.” Small Axe 13 (2003): 2.

[17] Mahon, “The Visible Evidence,” 474.

[18] Sonjah Stanley, “Kingston’s Dancehall A Story of Space and Celebration.” Space and Culture 7 (2004): 110.

[19] This pattern of dancing is a relatively new development in dancehall.  Throughout the eighties individuals dancing as couples was the predominant pattern of dancing.  In the early 90s Gerald “Bogle” Levy began to infuse choreographed dance moves which others followed.  Now, dancehall is as much about the latest dance as it is music and an entire industry around creating songs for specific dances has evolved.      

[20] Sean Cubitt, Videography: Video Media as Art and Culture (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1993), 4.

[21] Cubitt, Videography, 5.

[22] Ibid

[23] Ibid

[24] Douglas Davis, “Filmgoing/Videogoing: Making Distinctions,” in Video Culture: A Critical Investigation, ed. John G. Hanhardt (New York: Visual Studies Workshop, 1986) 273.

[25] This notion stems from a work by Professor Gary L. Lemmons on auto(race)critography—the writing of a memoir based on race.  It is reinterpreted here to address participants rewriting dancehall culture through the medium of video.

[26] Cubitt, Videography, 5.

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References

 1.     Barthes, Roland. Camera Lucida: Reflections on Photography. trans. Richard Howard. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1981.

 2.     Cooper, Carolyn. Noises in the Blood. North Carolina: Duke University Press, 1995.

 3.     Cubitt, Sean. Videography: Video Media as Art and Culture. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1993.

 4.     Davis, Douglas. “Filmgoing/Videogoing: Making Distinctions.” Video Culture: A Critical Investigation, ed. John G. Hanhardt, 270-271. New York: Visual Studies Workshop, 1986.

 5.     Edmondson, Belinda. “Public Spectacles: Caribbean Women and the Politics of Performance.” Small Axe 13 (2003):1-16.

 6.     Gabriel, Teshome H. “Ruin and the Other: Towards a Language of Memory.” Otherness and the Media: The Ethnography of the Imagined and the Imaged, eds. Teshome H. Gabriel and Hamid Naficy, 216-219. Switzerland: Harwood Academic Publishers, 1993.

 7.     Stanley, Sonjah. “Kingston’s Dancehall: A Story of Space and Celebration.” Space and Culture 1 (2004):102-118.

 8.     Jennings, Tom. “Dancehall Dreams.” Variant 2 (2004): 9-13.

9.     Mahon, Maureen. “The Visible Evidence of Cultural Producers.” Annual Review of Anthropology (2000): 467-492.

10.  Man, Beenie. “Man Stop Live Inna Di Past.” The Best of Beenie Man. VP/Universal, 2000. CD.

11.  Stolzoff, Norman C. Wake the Town and Tell the People: Dancehall Culture in Jamaica. North Carolina: Duke University Press, 2000.

 12.   Williams, Tanika. 2004. Interview with Jack Sowah. Digital Recording. March 22.