Jamaican Dancehall: Music's Most Hypersexual & Homophobic Genre

It's last Thursday night and my friend Hanna and I are going to Fusion Studio in Fitzroy to learn how to dance dancehall. I'd done my research. I'd seen the YouTube videos of hypersexual women, shaking themselves all over so that they wobble and wiggle provocatively. I'd watched barely clothed and jiggly Jamaican women grinding up against sweaty, athletic Jamaican men. I had looked surreptitiously over my shoulder to make sure no one was watching me watch these videos, because they're pretty much porn and it's all pretty arousing. Anyway, I asked Hanna to come along to the class, mainly because I knew there would be a majority of, if not all, girls there. I thought that if I brought along a girl then that would add some kind of legitimacy to me being there. Like, maybe if I brought a girl I would present as a non-threatening male who was there to dance and not to perve on girls. If I'm going to be honest though, I brought Han along for one more reason. You know, the dancers are so sexually aggressive and like a lot of guys, I am both turned on by women who are sexually aggressive, and intimidated by them. I brought Han along because I was a bit scared.

So we got there and I adopted my most journalistic and indifferent air and approached the reception desk at Fusion.

Me: Hey, so, like, um… I'm writing an article for The Music. I'm here to do the dancehall class, or whatever.

Girl: The dancehall class?

Me: Yeah. Or whatever.

Girl: The dancehall class has been cancelled.

Goddamn. What to do now?

First, a bit of history. Dancehall, which evolved from reggae, began in Jamaica in the late '70s. It came out of the ghetto culture and got its name because dancehalls were the only place you could see it. It all began with the DJs. See, in Jamaica a DJ doesn't just play records to people (that's what a selector does), a DJ is more like an MC. They have a mic, and they play the instrumental B-side of a pop single, then start improvising lyrics over the top of it. The quality of the DJ is decided by how many 'forwards' – cheers or shows of hands – they get from the crowd. This still happens today, and as a result the pace of its evolution is fast. New rhythms and dances are constantly being created and producers will release new songs every week for the DJs.

I called up Cat and KD Pwiti from Jungle City Projects, who put on the dancehall classes. They were good enough to give me an impromptu interview. I asked them about the hypersexuality of it. Cat said, “I think a Western person might listen to the lyrics and be really shocked or disgusted by it, but I think you have to put it into context and realise what that country has gone through, what their culture is, and what they relate to. When it comes to the sexual side of things they are a lot more liberated than we are.” Well, kind of. It's the sexual aspect that gives rise to one of the dancehall culture's most glaring contradictions – one that Cat and KD acknowledge as a problem. Dancehall is hugely sexually liberated in respect to heterosexuality, but completely repressed and phobic in respect to homosexuality, as in much of Jamaica.

In terms of hypersexuality, it can be pretty affronting to an Australian. Cat explained: “The most notorious dance is called 'daggering' and it's basically having sex with your clothes on. In Jamaica the chicks get right into it; it's something that they do and don't feel uncomfortable about. But in Australia and other Western countries that side of it is a bit intense and they find it off-putting. If that were to happen here you wouldn't have anybody coming to classes,” she laughed.

Jungle City Projects do classes every Tuesday and Thursday at Fusion Dance Studio in Fitzroy, as well as a two-hour jam session at Next Level Studios in Brunswick plus more – check their website for the full timetable. I'm going to get along to a jam session, and not just to perve, I promise.

Video below is pretty NSFW