ENTITY · CONCEPT
Respectability politics and Jamaican music
Well supported
The recurring middle-class "respectability" framework through which colonial and post-colonial Jamaican elites judged popular music, from mento's bawdiness and Rastafari drumming to rude-boy records, as vulgar or dangerous, and against which working-class forms were defended as authentic culture.
At a glance
- Type
- concept
- Confidence
- Well supported
- Era
- Open era →
Connections
Debate & reception
How people argued about the music — praise, criticism and public debate. See all debate & reception →
debate
Mento's bawdy songs: rustic candour or colonial indecency?
Two documented positions on mento's sexual double-entendre, stated neutrally: defenders heard rural working-class humour and honest candour in the word-play, while respectable and colonial opinion condemned it as 'smutty' and low. Neutral framing; no verdict. Sources: Jamaica Gleaner archive; Carolyn Cooper, Noises in the Blood.
Stance: rural working-class humour and candour vs middle-class colonial indecency
debate
Louise Bennett and Creole: vulgar dialect or the national voice?
Two documented positions on Louise Bennett's performance in Jamaican Creole: critics long dismissed 'dialect' as vulgar and unfit for the stage, while supporters championed it as an authentic and legitimate national voice, a view that eventually prevailed. Neutral framing; no verdict. Sources: Jamaica Gleaner archive; Carolyn Cooper, Noises in the Blood.
Stance: patois and folk culture as vulgar and low vs a legitimate national voice