REGGAE: The Story Of Jamaican Music..

I found this useful book in the libary an it includes some key pointers on the history of dancehall and the genre in its early days: why it was created by that generation, its purpose etc. This is essential for my study as it will help me to compare the changes in contemporary and past, historic dancehall music, enabling me to provide evidence for answering my question.

The 1970's was the real beginning of Dancehall, as its own, a unique sounds that fused together instrumentals, called riddims and songs by artists called deejays. The deejays were not just vocalling the riddims at dances, they were cutting songs in the studio. The deejays were determined to take it bit further stylistically and use it to communicate their disatisfaction with life in general to their peers. This was the begin of the 'Roots 'n' Culture' movement and the deejays were at the forefront of the promotion of this movement and with their religious and spiritual, righteous perspectives on life, many Rastafarians soon became deejays. One 'roots', deejay and devout rasta, Big Youth, said 'We wanted to reach the people, to educate them to what was going on around them'.

In regards to a wider contextual reading on 70s in Jamaica, technology musical technology in particular was in a boom which was leading to the experimentation of reggae music, expanding its popularity and interest.

The introduction of deejays lead to early years of Dancehall being very much about spreading the word and telling story's that would entertain but also educate but most importantly be from each individual deejays perspective, which in many cases would be the same as they were going through the same struggles and resulted in the beggining of personal expression in the form of music to mass audiences.

Reggae, The Story Of Jamaican Music,BBC, Lloyd Bradley,2002, LDN