Spice Says Dancehall Is Not Hyper-Sexual

Queen of Dancehall Spice has countered critics who believe that Dancehall is hyper-sexualized. Speaking with ABC on Tuesday (June 6) for Black Music Month, the Romantic Mood singer says the genre and its themes are merely cultural expression.

“I would say to them that this is our culture. Every place in this world has their own culture that they represent. We express ourselves differently as a Jamaican,” she said.

Sex and sexuality have been widely explored in the genre. The phenomenon falls under the “gyal” construct, which is one of the six G’s that summarize the themes in Dancehall music, according to Culture Professor Donna Hope.

Music and travel expert Noel Cymone Walker, who recently released a docu-special titled The Evolution of Reggae Music and Black History, was also part of Tuesday’s conversation and supplemented Spice’s commentary about the creative expressiveness of Dancehall that is often mistaken for hyper-sexuality, particularly among women.

“This is a space where they are completely liberated in their sensuality and it’s not hypersexualized, it’s not odd, at all. So, as much as it’s male dominated because there just might be more men, woman are so profound in this genre that it will never be a genre without women,” Walker reasoned.

Earlier in the discussion, the Queen differentiated between the groovy melody of traditional Reggae music and Dancehall.

“It’s a very bold, expressive kinda music. Dancehall, you can identify Dancehall separate from Reggae by our language—the patois. We speak about dancing a lot, gyrating the waistline a lot because it’s a high tempo, high energy, soundbox, baseline kinda vibe,” the Go Down Deh singer said.

The entertainer, who was officially crowned as Queen of the genre last July, revealed that she was first exposed to, and inspired by Reggae music thanks to her father.

“My father, he was a Rasta. He used to play like a lot of Bob Marley songs, a lot of Professor Nuts songs…that’s where I discovered music and I used to sing them; I used to love the way I sound and he’s like, ‘you’re gonna be a star! Sing for me my daughter’,” Spice reminisced.

The 40-year-old has multiple accolades under her belt, one of the most recent being receiving the Keys to the Region in Florida. Her impact on the world through Dancehall music is undoubtable, as she continues to push to greater heights. The So Mi Like It singer shared her formula to success.

“I feel like consistency, is really what brought me here. And not just hard work—but smart work.”