Sound Clash: Jamaican Dancehall Culture at Large
Although Jamaican dance-hall music exists as a subculture in the U.S., its rhythms, its outrageous and funky performances and its brash DJs rule much of the musical culture in Jamaica. As Cooper demonstrates in this largely academic study, dance-hall culture resembles in many ways the hip-hop culture of America. Braggadocio DJs engage in sound clashes, trying to outdo each other in their battle for the supremacy of the dance hall. From a close reading of the lyrics, she argues that dance-hall music and culture is also largely political, giving voice to the oppressed as they struggle to maintain their humanity in situations of economic injustice. She also contends that while the lyrics are often misogynistic, they also celebrate and worship the female, permitting women a measure of liberation. Dance-hall culture, she observes, also allows women to play out roles they may not have available to them in ordinary life. Cooper devotes so much space to responding to critics of her first book,Noises in the Blood, that it detracts from her main purpose in this book. While Cooper's study opens a window onto a fascinating culture, her academic tone ("arguing transgressively for the freedom of women to claim a self-pleasuring sexual identity that may even be explicitly homoerotic") probably will prevent this book from introducing dance-hall culture to a larger audience.Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.--This text refers to theHardcoveredition.