Dancehall in the context of "Grime music"

⭐ In the context of Grime music, Dancehall is considered…

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⭐ Core Definition: Dancehall

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. This music genre was not officially named until the 1980s, when the two words Dance and Hall (referring to the common venue) were joined to form Dancehall, which was then promoted internationally for the first time. At that time digital instrumentation became more prevalent, changing the sound considerably, with digital dancehall (or "ragga") becoming increasingly characterized by faster rhythms. Key elements of dancehall music include its extensive use of Jamaican Patois rather than Jamaican standard English and a focus on the track instrumentals (or "riddims").

Dancehall saw initial mainstream success in Jamaica in the 1980s; by the 1990s, it became increasingly popular in Jamaican diaspora communities. In the 2000s, dancehall experienced worldwide mainstream. By the 2010s, it began to heavily influence the work of established Western artists and producers, which has helped to further bring the genre into the Western music mainstream.

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👉 Dancehall in the context of Grime music

Grime is a genre of electronic dance music (EDM) that emerged in London in the early 2000s. It developed out of the earlier UK dance style UK garage, and draws influences from jungle, dancehall, and Hip-hop. The style is typified by rapid, syncopated breakbeats, generally around 140 beats per minute, and often features an aggressive or jagged electronic sound. Emceeing is a significant element of the style, and lyrics often revolve around gritty depictions of urban life.

The style initially spread among pirate radio stations and underground scenes before achieving some mainstream recognition in the UK during the mid-2000s through artists such as Dizzee Rascal, Kano, Lethal Bizzle, and Wiley. Grime's rise in the early 2000s benefited from a time before smartphones and social media dominated the music landscape, allowing the genre to develop at a slower, organic pace. Many of grime's foundational MCs, such as Ghetts, Kano, and Skepta, spent years refining their craft, with early career periods often lasting five to ten years. This period also produced significant archival material, from Run the Road compilations and Lord of the Mics DVDs to the RWD magazine, all of which captured grime's evolution at its peak. The genre’s emergence has often been compared to punk rock, a comparison solidified by tracks like Jammer's "Dagenham Dave," a nod to The Stranglers' song of the same name.

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Dancehall in the context of UK garage

UK garage, abbreviated as UKG, is a genre of electronic music which originated in England in the early to mid-1990s. It is defined by percussive, shuffled rhythms with syncopated hi-hats, cymbals, and snares, and may include either 4/4 house kick patterns or more irregular "2-step" rhythms. Garage tracks also commonly feature "chopped up" and time-stretched or pitch-shifted vocal samples complementing the underlying rhythmic structure at a tempo usually around 130 BPM. The genre was influenced by garage house, jungle, Jamaican soundsystem, ragga, dancehall, gospel music, R&B, and rave culture.

UK garage encompassed subgenres such as speed garage and 2-step, and was then largely subsumed into other styles of music and production in the mid-2000s, including bassline, grime, and dubstep. The decline of UK garage during the mid-2000s saw the birth of UK funky, which is closely related. The 2010s saw a resurgence in the genre, then in the early 2020s, a revival of UK garage, sometimes titled "new UK garage" or "NUKG", was widely attributed to London-based producer Conducta and his record label Kiwi Rekords.

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Dancehall in the context of Jungle music

Jungle is a genre of electronic music that developed in the 1990s out of the UK rave scene and Jamaican sound system culture. Emerging from breakbeat hardcore, the style is characterised by rapid breakbeats, heavily syncopated percussive loops, samples and synthesised effects, combined with the deep basslines, melodies and vocal samples found in dub, reggae and dancehall, as well as hip-hop and funk. Many producers frequently sampled the "Amen break" or other breakbeats from funk and jazz recordings. Jungle was a direct precursor to the drum and bass genre which emerged in the mid-1990s.

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Dancehall in the context of Reggaeton

Reggaeton (UK: /ˈrɛɡtn, ˌrɛɡˈtɒn/, US: /ˌrɛɡˈtn, ˌrɡ-/) is a style of popular and electronic music that originated in Panama during the late 1980s. It has been popularized and dominated by artists from Puerto Rico since the early 1990s.

It has evolved from dancehall, with elements of hip hop, Latin American, and Caribbean music. Vocals include toasting/rapping and singing, typically in Spanish. Reggaeton is regarded as one of the most popular music genres in the Spanish-speaking Caribbean. By the 2010s, the genre had seen increased popularity across Latin America, as well as acceptance within mainstream Western music.

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Dancehall in the context of Sound system (Jamaican)

In Jamaican popular culture, a sound system is a group of disc jockeys, sound engineers and MCs playing music such as ska, rocksteady, reggae, dub reggae, dancehall and ragga. Sound systems are an important part of Jamaican culture and history, especially with the Windrush generation in Britain. Sound clashes involve crew members from opposing sound systems pitting their DJing and MCing skills against each other in venues or at festivals.

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Dancehall in the context of Ragga

Raggamuffin music (or simply ragga) is a subgenre of dancehall and reggae music. The instrumentals primarily consist of electronic music with heavy use of sampling.

Wayne Smith's "Under Mi Sleng Teng", produced by King Jammy in 1985 on a Casio MT-40 synthesizer, is a seminal ragga song. "Sleng Teng" boosted Jammy's popularity immensely, and other producers quickly released their own versions of the riddim, accompanied by dozens of different vocalists.

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Dancehall in the context of Riddim

In Jamaican dancehall music, a riddim is the instrumental accompaniment to a song and is synonymous with the rhythm section and of a song's "groove" in its bass and low drum parts. Jamaican music genres that use the term consist of the riddim plus the voicing (vocal part) sung by the deejay. A given riddim, if popular, may be used in dozens—or even hundreds—of songs, not only in recordings but also in live performances.

Since the 1970s, riddims have accompanied reggae music and through the 1980s, more widely known as dancehall. As seen in dancehall music, there is a voicing part—sung by the DJ—over a riddim that has probably been widely used in many other songs. There is a unique establishment in the combination of riddims and voicing.

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