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Glite Dictionary
🏢 A dance venue 🎶 Jamaican music style
dancehall

dancehall

1 3.5
Jamaican music with a strong beat and energetic vocals for dancing
  • noun
  • /ˈdænsˌhɔl/
translation icon : dancehall
  • Rihanna's music contains strong influences of Caribbean music, which include reggae and dancehall.
  • Jamaican dancehall
  • dancehall music
  • ragga/dancehall

I hear that some dancehall music isn't very gay friendly.

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Examples

  • For example, one of the titles of utmost dancehall respect is "don."

    Academic text (1994)

  • Loud and Talk That Talk also saw her return to her dancehall roots, evident in tracks like "Man Down" and "Watch n' Learn."

    Blog text (20)

  • While in school in the early 1990s, he began singing dancehall, ragga, and rapping, all in English.

    Academic text (2009)

  • He is one of the most famous representatives of Jamaican dancehall deejay music (Manuel 1995:172-173).

    Academic text (2006)

  • The lively rhythms of dancehall music filled the street during the neighborhood block party.

  • Artists like Sean Paul and Spice are popular in the dancehall scene for their energetic performances.

  • At the festival, everyone was dancing to the upbeat dancehall tracks that made the crowd come alive.

How Energetic

dance music
16 1.4
dancehall
1 3.5
reggae
30 3.0
ambient
38 6.1

Surface Forms

dancehall singular
dancehalls plural

Morphology

dancehall = dance + hall (semi-transparent) = dance + hall

Components are clear ('dance' + 'hall'), but the sense denotes a music genre by metonymy from the venue, which is a cultural/semantic extension learners may not deduce.

Etymology

Dancehall as a music style is named after the Jamaican dancehall rooms where bands and singers played lively songs, so dancehall music has a strong beat and lively singing and is made for dancing.