Book Report - Inna Di Dancehall

The author of Inna di Dancehall, Donna P. Hope, paid homage to the lower-class inner city people of Jamaica. She gave them a voice as she explored the issues about dancehall as related to the Jamaican society. Hope discussed the historical setting and definition of dancehall, sex and gender, violence and identity in the dancehall. The author used this forum to bring to life the perceived unknown truths about the dancehall culture in Jamaica. Throughout the book, the theme of rudeness was explored. Hope linked “rudeness” to Jamaican culture and in essence showed how “rudeness” is a part of Caribbean civilization. Rudeness can be seen as vulgar behaviour or otherwise known as “slackness”. In the Caribbean, “slackness”, refers to violence, promiscuity and anti-homosexual sentiments which are similar to the culture of Jamaica. Is Jamaican rudeness an excuse for “culture” or is it just rudeness? To answer this question, one needs to delve into the history of Jamaican society and understand how rudeness may or may not relate to culture. As well as, how the popular music, dancehall, may play a part in developing “rudeness” as a component of culture. In the book, Inna di Dancehall, the author, Hope, listed the various factors which helped the formation of the popular form of music culture. Such factors were “the fall-out of Jamaica’s experiment with structural adjustment; the rise of free market capitalism; increasing urbanization; rising political violence; a growing ideological convergence between the People’s National Party (PNP) and the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP); the explosion of Jamaica’s informal economy and ongoing transformations in the class/status hierarchy, particularly amoung the middle strata” (1). Some of these factors created tension in society and through music, the people in society were able to release this built up frustration. According to Hope “dancehall culture is a space for the cultural creation and dissemination of symbols and ideologies that

Cited: • Hope, Donna P. Inna di Dancehall. Kingston: University of the West Indies Press, 2006. Print. • “Culture Matters”. Peace Corps. n.p, n.d. Web. 24 October, 2012.