Many Jamaicans don’t know a real ‘dance hall’ –
By veteran producer Cordel ‘Skatta’ Burrell’s estimation, many people have never set foot in a real dance hall before.
The theory seems incorrect when considering the multiple nightly events that take place in the Corporate Area on a weekly basis.
However, the promoter argued the ‘real dance hall’ experience has been diluted by factors like a millennial approach to music production and consumption.
Before the two words fused into one, a dance hall was exactly that – a room people filled up to dance in, surrounded by rib-cage rattling sonic vibrations booming out of towering speaker-boxes.
“When you go to a party now ... you see two likkle box stand up pon one post – mawga and skinny, and that is dancehall! A lot of people have never stepped into a real dance hall before. The most people start attend (a real) dance hall (event) is when Passa Passa start gwaan downtown. It was more of a trend,” Burrell said during the recent Gleaner’s Entertainment Forum.
He explained that the original dance hall was where producers came to hear how their music really beat through the boxes.
“When you go in a real dance hall, ah man coulda bawl inna yuh ears, yuh nah hear nuttin weh him ah seh. When a producer go in a dance hall and hear how a bassline supposed to roll – when him ah build a riddim, him a go test the song back inna the dance hall and make sure seh it meet the standards. We’re taking away that culture that gave birth to so many good producers,” he said.
One of the issues artiste manager Junior ‘Heavy D’ Fraser cited that has diminished dancehall in the capital is greed.
“The greed comes from everybody wah keep a party every night. It ah work suh, but the system ah guh crush it. You have Dutty Mondays, Nasty Tuesdays, Johncrow Wednesdays…” he quipped.
Even with the plethora of events, sound system owner and operator Ricky Trooper says real dancehall is not in the Corporate Area.
“If somebody fi want get the true essence of the dancehall, dem cyaa come ah Kingston. Dem haffi go country,” he said.
Trooper said that standing beside the speaker box tower, the music would rattle your chest and leave your eardrums ringing for the rest of the week.