This definitive study and essential guide to the 1980s Jamaican Dancehall scene features hundreds of exclusive photographs with accompanying text, interviews and biographies. The book captures a vibrant, globally influential and yet rarely documented culture that has been mixing music, fashion and lifestyle with aplomb since its inception. With unprecedented access to the incredibly vibrant music scene during this period, Beth Lessers photographs and text are a unique way in to a previously hidden culture.<BR>Dancehall is at the centre of Jamaican musical and cultural life. From its roots in Kingston in the 1950s to its heyday in the 1980s, Dancehall has gone on to conquer the globe, spreading to the USA, UK, Canada, Japan, Europe and beyond. It is a culture that encompasses music, fashion, drugs, guns, art, community, technology and more. Many contemporary global music and fashion styles can be traced back to Dancehall and indeed continue to be influenced by it today.<BR>Born in the 1950s out of the neighbourhood jams of Kingston, Dancehall grew to its height in the 1980s before a massive influx of drugs and guns made the scene too dangerous for many.<BR>'Dancehall' is an essential reference book for anyone interested in Reggae, as well as a unique photographic and textual source book of the musical, cultural and political life of Jamaica.<BR>This jam-packed visual history and text tells the story from its roots to its heights from that rare vantage point of the true, respected insider. In the early 1980s as Jamaica was in the throes of political and gang violence Beth Lesser ventured where few others dared and this book is a never before seen record of the exciting, vibrant and sometimes dangerous world of Dancehall.