Dancehall Diaspora: Rastafari & Rudeness in the African Postcolony

The sustained energy of Ghanaian Reggae Dancehall reflects the longstanding influence of Jamaican-inspired popular culture in Ghana today. Dancehall is championed by Rastafarian and zongo communities who remain marginalized in a globalizing and yet conservative Ghana. In response, local artists strike as rebellious postures as their Jamaican counterparts—projecting Rasta and rude identities as counter-hegemonic identities in Ghana. Subcultures in these locations now mirror each other, echoing Middle Passage retentions that link Black Atlantic nodes. Novel vectors of diaspora inhere. While Jamaican musicians hail Africa as a fugitive site from Babylon, Ghanaian artists rework Dancehall with social impact; outmaneuvering their detractors as they indigenize the form. 

About Osei Alleyne 

A joint PhD in Anthropology and Africana Studies from the University of Pennsylvania, inaugural postdoctoral fellow at the Center for Experimental Ethnography at Penn and current Assistant Professor of Media Studies at Temple University, Philadelphia, Dr. Osei Alleyne draws from Hip hop performance and a Caribbean background to engage multimodal ethnography in his current book project, Dr. Alleyne explores how Ghanaian adaptations of Rasta, ragga and rude sonic genres and embodiments, drawn from kindred diasporic space in Jamaica fare in the Ghanaian postcolony.