Dancehall

Dancehall grew out of reggae in the late 1970s and became the dominant popular music of Jamaica, built around the sound system: enormous stacks of speakers set up in a street or a lawn, a selector choosing records and a deejay talking over them. The culture that grew around it produced its own dances, each named and each spreading through videos and competition, and its own fashion, language and economy. Weekly street sessions in Kingston are where it actually happens rather than in clubs; the best known have run for years on the same night in the same street, with the sound system stacked against a wall and the road closed by consensus.

What you actually see

• The sound system - stacked speakers and the selector working the crowd.
• Street sessions - weekly sessions on the same night in the same Kingston streets.
• The dances - named steps that spread from the floor outward.
• The clash tradition - sound systems competing against each other.

When to go

Year-round. The long-running Kingston street sessions each have their own night of the week, and they start very late, often not filling until after midnight. Carnival season in spring and the summer festivals bring the larger staged events.

Honest expectations

Street sessions are in neighbourhoods that visitors should not navigate alone at night; go with a local or a guide who knows the session. Volume is genuinely damaging at close range. The scene has a longstanding problem with homophobic lyrics in parts of its repertoire, which is worth knowing. Photography of people needs asking.

Nearby

Kingston has the sessions; Montego Bay's Reggae Sumfest is the big staged event.