‘Dis Slackness Ting’: A Dichotomizing Master Narrative in Jamaican Dancehall

Abstract

This paper reviews varied representations of Dancehall in some of the existing literature with particular focus on the debates that have occupied writers for the past two decades. These writings have indeed given Dancehall ‘cartographic representation’ and their contribution to the construction of a cultural history and ecology of Dancehall is noteworthy. The paper does not present a historiography of Dancehall music and culture; rather, it reviews and critiques some of the central debates while advancing an ecological agenda. Most noteworthy is the way slackness has to be understood as a master narrative that has occupied the Dancehall, and that within this debate lies its own destabilization and de-legitimation.

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