ABSTRACT
A live dancehall performance in Jamaica can be a full body experience. Folks in the audience are not listening so much as responding at the top of their lungs to the motormouth flow of flirting, calling, and suggestive phrasing tossed out by the performer on stage. When half of the people in the crowd fall silent, inspect their feet, and stand to attention, you can’t help but notice the shift in tone. This is the near-universal male response when a popular female performer like Lady Saw steps to the mike. Among female DJs, Saw leads the field in interpreting the lewd style of dancehall reggae. Her frank simulation of sexual acts, in gesture and lyrics, has gotten her banned from performing in other Caribbean island nations and has long attracted the censure of Jamaica’s middle-class morality brokers. But when she performs for her fans, the silence of men is a powerful if sullen act of respect, as fiercely stifled as the enthusiasm of the women is unbridled. In this mute appraisal, she is being recognized for her skills, for doing justice to the dancehall genre, for seizing the lyrical prerogative in a field of DJs that is so competitive that performers have to petition their public constantly to stay in contention.
