3 guides
Jamaican Patois: music
Lyrics repeat, so they stick — but a line rarely means what it says.
For a great many people the first Patois they ever heard was sung. Reggae, dub, dancehall and the artists streaming right now are the single largest reason anyone outside Jamaica encounters the language at all — and lyrics are a genuinely good way in, because they repeat, they stick, and they reward being understood properly.
They are also a trap taken literally. Song language is compressed, deliberately playful, thick with coinages that were current for one summer, and full of references that assume you grew up somewhere specific. A line can be perfectly clear word by word and still mean something other than what it says.
These guides read the language of the music closely: what the recurring words mean, which of them belong to ordinary speech and which belong only to a record, and where the line falls between quoting an artist and speaking the language.
3 guides
Music
Big up yuhself, and what you are actually doing when you say it
Big up yuhself means well done, and respect to you. Where the phrase came from, how the grammar works, and how it lands when a non-Jamaican says it.
5 min read
Music
The Patois that runs through dancehall, and how to hear it
Dancehall lyrics are hard for a reason. The recurring Patois words, the deejay formulae and the sound changes that let you decode a track yourself.
8 min read
Music
The reggae vocabulary that left Jamaica, and what happened to it
Reggae carried Patois words worldwide. What the Rastafari I-words mean, which words drifted in transit, and which ones are worth being careful with.
7 min read
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