Queen Of Dancehall Spice Triggers Online Debate On The Origins Of Hip Hop

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Spice

Queen of Dancehall Spice recently sent tongues wagging with her comments on the origins of hip hop.

During her promotional Breakfast Club interview on June 22, Spice schooled host Charlamagne Tha God, who is notoriously not the biggest fan of Dancehall. “You love hip-hop though, but hip-hop came from dancehall, you know that right. The people who started hip-hop was a Jamaican who came to New York,” Spice said of Jamaican artist and reputed hip hop pioneer DJ Kool Herc.

Two-time Grammy winner and Spice’s Go Down Deh collaborator, Shaggy agreed with her sentiments. “There’s so many things that take from this genre, you’re looking at hip hop, reggaeton, Afrobeats that comes from this but yet still dancehall is 6% of the market share. Culturally, we’re strong. Everything that you see Katy Perry, Lady Gaga, Doja Cat doing, that comes from Grace Jones and is magnified through Dancehall”, the Ranch Ent label head said.

However some American stars weren’t here for the history lesson, and media personalities Amanda Seales and Tariq Nasheed went head to head over the facts online.

The Insecure actress, whose mother is from Grenada, seemed unwilling to credit a single Jamaican individual for the creation of an entire subculture.  In an Instagram post on June 26, Seales argued instead that it was generations of Caribbean immigrants who “cultivated” the genre.

“Hip hop was cultivated in america,” she wrote in an instagram post. “Carib born/Carib descendants have played a massive role in its creation & continuance. To suggest that Caribbean people are ‘appropriating hip hop’ is like saying Puerto Ricans are appropriating break dancing.”

Asserting that America was “a uniquely placed nucleus of Black culture[s]” Seales added that “so much innovation has come from the hands of black folks brought here and born here and in the case of hip hop a blend that also includes black folks birthed elsewhere”.

Though the genre as we know it was famously founded at a Bronx birthday party in August 1973, Seales is among those who suggest that it was spawned from various influences. On that day in history, DJ Kool Herc played to his largest crowd with the most powerful sound system he’d ever worked. Showcasing all the tricks he’d picked up from Jamaica’s sound systems, the young Kingstonian laid down the blueprint for the grassroots movement that has held to this day.

However, American movie producer and activist Tariq Nasheed, had a different take on things, albeit one that begins in the Bronx.

On his repost of Seales’ Instagram post which read “The culture was cultivated in the us by black folks from the across the diaspora and continues to flourish!”, the Play Or Be Played author snidely commented, “Oh Lort”.

He then tweeted, “There is huge online debate about whether or not Caribbeans created Hip Hop. The facts are, all elements Hip Hop was 100% created by FOUNDATIONAL BLACK AMERICANS. The old heads from the Bronx who were there, will literally laugh in your face for saying Caribbeans started it”.

The tweet was accompanied by a clip of two men, presumably Bronx natives, ridiculing the widely accepted version of events, given above.

Meanwhile, social media users had mixed reactions to the latest episode of this raging debate.

“Jamaicans are like the Soulja Boy of the black community, they think they started everything,” one user joked in the comments, while another simply quipped, “Ask Kool Herc”.

Some had a more harmonious take on things: “Hip-Hop is a fusion of Jamaican dancehall clashes and American jazz, r&b, funk, & disco culture. The three pillars of hip hop is MC’s, a DJ and a sound system and that concept came from Jamaica. You marry that Caribbean soul and American soul and you have hip-hop. Both played their parts. One doesn’t take precedent over the other.”

Other users offered a more succinct account: “Jamaicans gotta stop saying Hip Hop was founded by Dancehall. Yes, Kool Herc was Jamaican. Yes, he started hip hop. But that’s not the same as saying “Dancehall started hip hop” it did not. Cool Herc utilized various aspect of R&B and Jazz to construct said sound. Then used presentation (battling, DJing, MCing) not sound, of his country’s music culture. So yes Jamaica influenced Kool Herc. so it does mend in hip hop’s birth. But is not the father of it. It an influencer big difference.”