If you’ve heard “It Wasn’t Me” by Shaggy or been seduced by Sean Paul’s accent, you’ve discovered dancehall. A new documentary explores how the music made its way from the Caribbean to take root in New York City during the 1980s and ‘90s.
, directors Ben DiGiacomo and Dutty Vannier explore how the music made its way from the Caribbean to take root in New York City during the 1980s and ‘90s – and how Brooklyn became established as a hub for the culture.
The filmmakers quickly learned there was more to the story than they’d anticipated. “We realized that a lot of the older stories were untold,” DiGiacomo said. “A lot of people were telling us, you need to talk to these people, you need to tell these stories, because they need to go beyond what's today. You need to explain where it comes from.”
“We really needed Shaggy, Jay Will and other people to really enforce certain points of the doc, certain points of the culture – to help us make those decisions that are a little more sensitive on what to include and what to not include,” DiGiacomo said. Cole said radio stations proudly played reggae, which was viewed as Jamaica's national identity. But dancehall wasn’t embraced as easily. Its lyrical content leaned into sexuality, violence and the hardships of life for the poor in Jamaica, rather than reggae’s focus on spirituality and politics.
“If you're just imitating steps, you don't really understand that context, you don't understand the importance of celebrating the self,” she said. “Dancehall is so global already, so if it’s going to be out there, it needs to be out there with people having the full knowledge about where it comes from.”
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