Dancehall: The Rise Of Jamaican Dancehall Culture

This heavyweight deluxe flexi-bound 215 page book is a definitive study and essential guide to the 1980s Jamaican dancehall scene and features hundreds of amazing, unique, never seen before photographs with accompanying text, interviews and biographies. Gregory Isaacs, Sugar Minott, Sister Nancy, Tenor Saw, Sly & Robbie, King Jammy, Eek A Mouse, Yellowman, Frankie Paul. This book is literally a who's-who in stunning photos and text of dancehall's phenomenal rise. The book captures a vibrant, globally influential and yet rarely documented culture that has been mixing music, fashion and lifestyle with attitude since its inception. With unprecedented access to the incredibly rich music scene during this period, Beth Lesser's photographs and informed text are a unique way into a previously-hidden culture. Dancehall is at the center of Jamaican musical and cultural life. From its roots in Kingston in the 1950s to its heyday in the 1980s, dancehall has gone on to conquer the globe, spreading to the USA, UK, Canada, Japan, Europe and beyond. Dancehall is a culture that encompasses music, fashion, drugs, guns, art, community, technology and more. Dancehall is an essential reference book for anyone interested in reggae, as well as a unique photographic and textual source book of all things musical, cultural and political in Jamaica. This jam-packed visual history of dancehall from its roots to its eights is told from that rare vantage point of the true, respected insider. In the early 1980s, as Jamaica was in the throes of political and gang violence, Beth Lesser ventured where few others dared, and this book is a never-before-seen record of the exciting, vibrant and sometimes dangerous world of dancehall. To coincide with this book, Soul Jazz Records is also releasing a deluxe 2CD set and two volumes of double-vinyl albums featuring killer dancehall tracks from many of the artists who appear in the book -- 100% essential!