Dancehall, Ragga, and Dub
Anyone into this? I'm looking for recommendations from people who are properly into it
There's alot of confusion with the terminology of what is 'ragga' and what is 'dancehall', so just to clear this up for anyone unfamiliar, dancehall refers to sped up reggae of the early 80's, made mainly for dances, this was when the DJ, and eventually MC's, would be 'chatting' or 'toasting' over a riddim to get people moving.
Eventually respective soundsystems and their crews took to competing with one another...here is the legendary Saxon Soundsystem from the UK
ofcourse all these guys were of second-generation West Indies immigrants to London, who were initally brought over for the cheap labour in the 50's, so this is pure yardie flow.
Ragga was basically where drum machines became involved in the mid-80's. Generally faster, more MC-oriented, with explicit lyrics concerning guns and sex. This kind of music was extremely influential on early hip hop.
Ofcourse the patented Jamaican style of MCing, the 'Yardie' flow, continued and flourished over jungle, then drum n' bass, etc.
The terminology of ragga and dancehall have sort of fused and contemporary Jamaican 'bashment' (a dancehall rave) music all falls under the umbrella term 'dancehall', and continues to thrive on the UK underground and just about everywhere else I think, with the occasional crossover hit.
It's pretty hype and I'm personally well into anything with bass that you can feel in your chest cavity...dubstep of course has picked up the mantle of dub (derived from it's origins in the early 70's, basically started as reggae b-sides - thus the 'dub mix' - with the bass right up in the mix and loads of reverb with all kinds of other weird sound effects) and i'm a skanker for that stuff...
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