Dancehall

Dancehall
Stylistic origins	Reggae R&B ska rocksteady dub toasting
Cultural origins	Late 1970s Jamaica, especially Kingston
Typical instruments	Early dancehall: Drums Bass guitar Guitar Organ Modern dancehall: Drum machine Sampler Synthesizer Organ
Derivative forms	grime reggaeton
Subgenres
Ragga Reggae en Español (complete list)
Fusion genres
Reggae fusion Bhangragga Oldschool jungle Tropical house
Other topics
Stop Murder Music Slackness TEMPO Networks

Music of Jamaica
General topics
Related articles
Genres
Dancehall Dub Dub poetry Kumina Lovers rock Mento Niyabinghi Raggamuffin Reggae Reggae fusion Rocksteady Roots reggae Ska Ska jazz Ska punk Sound systems Toasting
Nationalistic and patriotic songs
National anthem	Jamaica, Land We Love
Regional music
Anguilla Antigua and Barbuda Aruba and the Dutch Antilles Bahamas Barbados Belize Bermuda Bonaire Cayman Islands Cuba Curaçao Dominica Dominican Republic Grenada Guadeloupe Guyana Haiti Mauritius Martinique Montserrat Panama Puerto Rico St Kitts and Nevis St Lucia St Vincent and Grenadines Suriname Trinidad and Tobago Turks and Caicos Virgin Islands

Dancehall is a genre of Jamaican popular music that originated in the late 1970s. Initially dancehall was a more sparse version of reggae than the roots style, which had dominated much of the 1970s. Two of the biggest stars of the early dancehall era were Yellowman and Eek-a-Mouse. Dancehall brought a new generation of producers, including Linval Thompson, Gussie Clarke and Jah Thomas. In the mid-1980s, digital instrumentation became more prevalent, changing the sound considerably, with digital dancehall (or "ragga") becoming increasingly characterized by faster rhythms. (The word "bashment", a term originating in the 1990s, was used to describe a particularly good dance; for example "to go to a bashment dance". In the Dancehall vernacular, "bashment" is therefore an adjective instead of a noun.)

Chaka Demus and Pliers were the first dancehall megahits in the US and around the world. Other varieties of dancehall achieved crossover success outside of Jamaica during the mid-to-late 1990s. After the popularizing of Buju Banton's dancehall song "Boom Bye Bye" in the early 1990s, dancehall music came under criticism over homophobic lyrics in a few songs. The early 2000s saw the success of newer charting acts such as Rihanna, Elephant Man and Sean Paul. Dancehall made a resurgence within the pop market in the late 2000s, with songs by Konshens, Busy Signal, Mr. Vegas, Alkaline, Mavado, Vybz Kartel, Beenie Man. By the 2010s, dancehall began to heavily influence the work of established hip-hop artists, such as Drake, which has helped to further bring the genre into the Western music mainstream.

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