If you’ve heard “It Wasn’t Me” by Shaggy, been seduced by Sean Paul’s accent or even bobbed your head to Justin Bieber’s “Sorry,” you’ve discovered dancehall. Even the most casual listener might hear the melodic strains of this infectious style while passing through certain parts of Brooklyn on any given day. Dancehall culture has crept into many different artforms, ranging from music to dance and fashion.
In “Bad Like Brooklyn Dancehall,” a new documentary opening tonight at the Tribeca Festival, 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 film highlights how dancers, DJs and members of the Caribbean community built a cultural bridge between Jamaica and New York through basement parties and celebrations that brought together people who were worlds apart.
In their documentary "Bad Like Brooklyn Dancehall," directors Dutty Vannier and Ben DiGiacomo help to illuminate the context behind a popular musical style.
DiGiacomo fell in love with dancehall music as a youth in France, but didn’t know anything about the culture associated with it until he moved to New York in 2009. He and Vannier, who had frequented parties in Brooklyn since moving to the city in 2011, initially set out to make a film about the contemporary scene, covering parties like Rice and Peas, where hundreds of people party for hours at venues throughout New York City to the sounds of dancehall, along with soca and reggae
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.”
Vannier says as they continued interviewing subjects, a pattern came to light. Everyone wanted to talk about how dancehall music was tied to history and community.
“A lot of them start mentioning immigration, their history, their parents, where they are from,” he said. “We thought, OK, that's really interesting – and they all talked about it, so we cannot not talk about it.”
Seeking guidance in dealing with historical issues like Jamaican politics and immigration, the filmmakers reached out to Shaggy, who served as an executive producer, and other prominent figures in the scene. Shaggy himself was born in Kingston, Jamaica, and moved to Brooklyn with his mother when he was 18.
“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.
Co-director Ben DiGiacomo talks with producer Jay Will and Shaggy, a Jamaican-born dancehall star based in Brooklyn, for expert guidance. (This caption has been corrected.)
Michelle Cole is an NYU professor who teaches the anthropology of dance as well as dance classes. She’s Jamaican, and said it’s almost impossible to talk about dancehall without addressing the political context around its creation.
“There was a political shift to a more conservative party in the 1970s,” she said about a period of social and political unrest in the country. “That ended up kind of quieting the voices of the youth, or the people in downtown Kingston. People uptown had a certain perspective of what the music should sound like.”
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.
“That's like a quote-unquote ghetto thing, that's a downtown thing,” Cole said, referring to the perception of dancehall. “It was the voice of the youth that dancehall came out of.”
Anyone trying to learn about the music, Cole says, should also understand the history that shaped its foundation and development.
“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.”
The music grew in popularity in Jamaica during the late 1970s and early 1980s, buoyed by notable DJs. As people left the country and migrated elsewhere, Cole says, dancehall culture was one way they stayed connected to their roots. That’s how neighborhoods like Flatbush and Crown Heights became a focal point for parties, parades and backyard get-togethers.
“These Caribbean communities are living together in these places,” she said. “It's not just Brooklyn, but it's also the Bronx. Wherever you can find our communities, you will find our music, you will find our dance. It's a part of who we are, it's part of our identity.”
DiGiacomo says making “Bad Like Brooklyn Dancehall” was a constant process of discovering information you couldn’t find on the internet, because it wasn’t officially documented.
“Every time we talked to a subject," he said, "I was kind of amazed about those stories that are so important, that are hidden, that are just in people's minds."
“Bad Like Brooklyn Dancehall” is playing at the Tribeca Festival June 8, 9 and 15.
