This work provides an accessible account of a poorly understood aspect of Jamaican popular culture. It explores the socio-political meanings of Jamaica's dancehall culture. In particular, the book gives an account of the power relations within the dancehall and between the dancehall and the wider Jamaican society. Hope gives the reader an unmatched insider's view and explanation of power, violence and gender relations in Jamaica as seen through the prism of the dancehall.

Megawattage sound systems have blasted the electronically-enhanced riddims and tongue-twisting lyrics of Jamaica's dancehall DJs across the globe. This high-energy raggamuffin music is often dismissed by old-school roots reggae fans as a raucous degeneration of classic Jamaican popular music. In this provocative study of dancehall culture, Cooper offers a sympathetic account of the philosophy of a wide range of dancehall DJs: Shabba Ranks, Lady Saw, Ninjaman, Capleton, Buju Banton, Anthony B and Apache Indian. Cooper also demonstrates the ways in which the language of dancehall culture, often devalued as mere 'noise,' articulates a complex understanding of the border clashes which characterize Jamaican society, and analyzes the sound clashes that erupt in the movement of Jamaican dancehall culture across national borders.

Phonographic Memories is the first book-length analysis of Caribbean popular music in the Caribbean novel. Tracing a region-wide poetics that attends to the centrality of Caribbean music in retrieving and replaying personal and cultural memories, Hamilton offers a fresh perspective on musical nationalism and nostalgic memory in the era of globalization.

The book presents a representative selection of the papers presented at the second Conference on Caribbean Culture in honour of Kamau Brathwaite.

In the dawn of the new African Millennium, the Rastafari movement has achieved unheralded growth and visibility since its inception more than eighty years ago. Moving beyond a pure spiritual movement, its aesthetic component has influenced cultures of the Caribbean, the United States, and others across the globe. Locating the Rastafari movement at a literal and figurative crossroad, Barnett sets out to consider the possible paths the movement will chart. Rastafari in the New Millennium covers a wide range of perspectives, focusing not only on the movement’s nuanced and complex religious ideology but also on its political philosophy, cosmology, and unique epistemology. Barry Chevannes’s essay addresses the concerns of death and repatriation, highlighting the transformative challenges these issues pose to Rastafari. Essays by Ian Boxill, Edward Te Kohu Douglas, Erin C. MacLeod, and Janet L. DeCosmo, among others, offer rich accounts of the globalization of Rastafari from New Zealand to Ethiopia, from Brazil to Nigeria. Drawing on new research and global developments, the contributors, many of whom are leading scholars in the field, reinvigorate the critical dialogue on the current state and future direction of the Rastafari movement.

"Country Duppy and Jonkanoo Jamboree are two very amusing plays that revel in traditional Jamaican cultural forms and creatively explore their meeting with the modern world. Highly recommended for Caribbean students of English Literature and Theatre Arts" COUNTRY DUPPY "This is family entertainment....informative, rib-tickling comedy" (Daily Gleaner) "Country Duppy is an outrageously hilarious slice of Jamaican life." (Jamaica Observer) "...heavily informed by Jamaican folklore and traditional practices." (Share News, Toronto) JONKANOO JAMBOREE "An allegorical exploration of class and race using the Jonkanoo as a trope for life as a masquerade". (SUSUMBA) "There was understanding of stage craft, use of space and natural dialogue." (Daily Gleaner) "Musical drama, part cautionary folktale marked by a sense of old-fashioned Jamaican storytelling and youthful angst." (Tallawah Magazine)

An ethnography of Dancehall, the dominant form of reggae music in Jamica since the early 1960s.