Roots Archives Forum

What era or years do you consider dancehall?

Do you consider the early 80's channel one era as dancehall or anything after the sleng teng riddim?

ites deh
for me i consider dancehall early 80's when was call dancehall, now i think what they call dancehall is new roots inna digital ting and the other fusions with hip hop,dance music,electronic,rap,pop,jazz,etc dat emerged in the style of today's reggae music dat "we" who ears dat sound cause i don't.long live the time with the musicians playing music,brass,organ,hammond,piano,drum & bass percussion,etc....wonderfull music
respect everytime
Carlos

'Dancehall' came to life in the dawning of the 1980 election in Jamaica when times were getting real dread in Kingston with many too much people killed in political gangwars. Ending 1978 and on in 1979 more and more artists changed lyrics from roots and conscious themes, or 'sufferah' if you like, to more daytoday topics including what has become 'slackness' as an artform. General Echo was one of the first deejays to turn onto that style in the Dancehall and manymany more followed as the public turned to like that more than any more calls for repatriation and the love to Jah. Barrington Levy and Sugar Minott were the singers that led the way in this period which culminated in a dominance of deejay-records in the charts and with the tastes of the dancehall massives. Producers like Junjo Lawes, Bertram Brown and Linval Thompson started with Dancehall, the Roots Radics followed the Revolutinaries as session musicians of the day and dominated just about every record made then.
This Dancehall period lasted as long as to the end of 1985 when 'Sleng Teng' again changed the face of reggae totally. You can call this 'ragga' if you like but it was 'dancehall' all the way up to today.
Greetings.

i like to call the period between

1979 to 1985 - rub a dub
1985 to 1990 - raggamuffin
1991 to 1999 - ragga
2000 - - - - - dancehall

I CONSIDER DON CARLOS AS ONE OF THE BEST DANCEHALL KINGS.

theres some really crap stuff out on the radio they call dancehall these days :/ cant beat the older tunes.

Bullit

Biggup Dreadrecords,

I can't agree more about the importance of real instruments and the skilled musicians who play them. I'm in a roots group here and San Diego and I'm going to keep that tradition alive. I'll be damned before I use a digital drum machine!

Yes-I, music made by real musicans I-man deal with (at least in reggae). Love sleng teng though..

I have always shunned digital reggae, whatever you want to call it... I've tended to concentrate on 70s and pre- 70s JA sounds. Stuff with real players playing real instruments. Yeah.

BUT

then I got a few digi 45s in a job lot of veerus reggae chunes and span them to check condition before moving them on at ebay.

What a revalation!

I have one, Caress Me Down, by Clement Irie which has really got me moving and grooving.

I want more JUST LIKE IT.

Is it ragga? Sleng Teng? Bashment? I dunno - you tell me.

Any suggestions for more stuff with this tempo (which makes the sistahs in this household wanna move to the riddim, be they aged 30 or 13!) and this hard hard style will be very welcome!

Sorry, but the Smiley Culture type cuts don't cut it for me, the vocals are too soft.

Gwaaaaan!

I consider good dancehall from 1979-1985. This is my personal opinion. Today is a bunch of yelling and no real subject to sing about. I sure wish the old school dj's would get together and make a cd with some old school riddem and knock these new school(blues) out the box.

Blackstar