Dancehall

Perhaps this little piece of information may end up surprising you, but the truth is that Jamaica's biggest export to the outside world is not special brownies, but their music. They have developed many styles in the past few decades, with one of the newest emerging ones being dancehall. The style has started in the 80s and is still expanding and gaining influence around the world even to this day. The first person to ever introduce this music to the world was King Jammy, an extremely famous Jamaican producer. This new style of music worked well with the younger generations, and soon became a big hit, spreading throughout the Caribbean, into the United States, and eventually started to reach overseas to the rest of the world. When it comes to the music itself the style it follows is very upbeat with fast and enjoyable rhythms; it's basically an energetic dance music representative of the mindset of the Jamaica's youth.

Just like many styles of music which have been made popular among the younger generations, it is much more than a bunch of beats, especially people living close to it in the Caribbean. For the youths of that country, this music is a symbol of what they can potentially become, of overcoming their difficulties and sharing their story through the power granted to them by this music; for them, it is a passion which eventually becomes a lifestyle.

The first artists of the dancehall style included Wayne smith, Super Cat and Shabba Ranks who was actually the first such artist to premiere on MTV. Immediately, these artists had a huge impact not only in their own people but also on the music scene in America. As you probably know a couple of decades ago the situation was quite different for minorities in the United States, even though it's still far from ideal to this day. Most of them were living lives of poverty in shabby and worn-down neighbourhoods, a lot of them having no hope of ever getting out of their predicament. When dancehall swept through America, a lot of these youths saw in it a calling, a way to break free from the financial chains that bind them and keep them from rising up. In time, many artists who drew inspiration from dancehall became international celebrities, including people such as Shaggy, Sean Paul, Mavado and Elephant Man.

However, dancehall wasn't done spreading yet as there is actually a whole other part of the world to conquer. And so, eventually dancehall ended up spreading to Europe and unsurprisingly, it spoke to many young artists who today are specializing in this style of music and are working relentlessly on bringing new things to it to keep it improving.

Dancehall is a very unique and intriguing style of music with which many have fallen in love over the years. Even though it is mostly the younger crowd who were drawn to it, there really is no reason why your age should be dictating your taste in music, so why not give it a shot? After all, it won't cost you anything.