The photographer talks about discovering Jamaican dancehall in early 1980s

“My husband and I were always interested in a lot of different forms of music, but it was reggae that really caught our attention. In the ‘70s we listened to a lot of dub, especially Augustus Pablo. We decided to go to Jamaica and try to interview talk to him about his music and his Rocker’s International label. So we flew down from Toronto and the trip resulted in our small fanzine called Live Good Today.

But when we were down there we found the dance hall scene - you couldn’t get away from it, it was just so overpowering, it was everywhere. It wasn’t really something that was really exported much and there was no major label involvement like there was in a lot of the roots artists.

It was a real surprise to go down there and find it, but it was so interesting we just got drawn in. The music was great, it was lively and fun. It’s remarkable, there just live for the moment.

We were just young and crazy at the time. I hate to sound like your typical old fogie and say ‘oh it was better then, modern music is terrible and the youth has just gone to hell’, but I don’t like the music now - to me it sound really angry. You hear the DJs now and they sound like they’re just yelling at you like they’re mad. ack then it was fun, it was silly, it was silly things that had silly lyrics.

This photo was taken in 1986 at the singer Sugar Minott’s house. He had a promotion organization where young talented artists would come and he would work with them and they would perform on the sound system and once they had enough exposure and training and experience he would record them.

Singers and DJs and artists sometimes very young kids would come and hang out and they could practice with the sound and get lessons from some of the older artists. One of Sugar’s many relatives would always be cooking a pot of stew and there would be some older artists like Lloyd Hemmings who would teach harmony, chords, and how to write music notation by writing on the wall. So it was quite an interesting place

I can’t remember who this guy is. There were always so many people around. Funnily enough my husband and I got married there in the yard, and we signed the papers in that room. We got married at a youth promotion dance. We signed the papers then we went outside and they had the sound system set up.”

© TIM NOAKES