Perhaps in a bid to add authenticity to their blatant trend-riding, dozens of pop, R&B and rap acts hired in genuine dancehall icons, with Sean Paul enjoying his biggest year since his ‘Get Busy’ heyday over a decade ago. Everywhere you looked, the Major Lazer influence was apparent. MØ, the Danish singer who fronted ‘Lean On’, returned to a dancehall riddim on ‘Final Song’, while similarly named UK girl group M.O pulled out the steel drums on ‘Who Do You Think Of’ and Beyoncé took a couple of Diplo beats for ‘All Night’ and ‘Hold Up’ on Lemonade. That was the hit that no one saw coming – and then everyone scrambled to bite the blueprint. The barrage of dembow hits isn’t just coincidence – the biggest hits always produce copycats, and clever songwriters and producers were clearly following the lead of Major Lazer’s ‘Lean On’, the global smash of 2015. While Sia’s ‘Cheap Thrills’ unseated ‘One Dance’ in the US, in the UK Major Lazer’s Justin Bieber-assisted ‘Cold Water’ was the dembow track to take its place.Įverywhere you looked this year, the Major Lazer influence was apparent After 15 weeks on top, ‘One Dance’ became the UK’s longest-running No. Much of that was labelled under a buzzy new subgenre: “tropical house” was to 2016 what “deep house” was to 2014. At one point a quarter of the top 40 tracks had an obvious Jamaican influence or guest feature. On the other side of the Atlantic, where dancehall, dub and reggae have long been recognised as foundational to the scenes that created rave, drum and bass and grime, the UK singles chart largely reflected this shift. Dancehall-styled songs eventually reigned supreme on the chart for 26 weeks – half the entire year. Inarguably the song of the summer, it was toppled by Sia and Sean Paul’s ‘Cheap Thrills’, which spent four weeks at No. ‘Work’ collaborator Drake then spent 10 non-consecutive weeks on top with ‘One Dance’, the dembow reimagining of Crazy Cousinz’s UK funky classic ‘Do You Mind’. For 12 of the first 18 weeks of the year, the Billboard Hot 100 was dominated by two distinctly dancehall-sounding songs: Justin Bieber’s ‘Sorry’ took the top spot from Adele’s comeback on ‘Hello’, and Rihanna’s ‘Work’ knocked off Bieber’s second number one, ‘Love Yourself’.
But in 2016, the charts told a different story. (That word “tropical” will crop up again). Jamaica is a hot Caribbean island, so dancehall can be used as shorthand for warm weather and carefree holidays. But should we be worried that, despite dancehall’s commercial clout, so few Jamaican artists are in the spotlight? Marvin Sparks reflects on a breakthrough year for the sound that should never be labelled “tropical house.”ĭancehall is usually a summer fling in the music industry. Dancehall crashed the mainstream in 2016, providing the sound and, crucially, the rhythm for the year’s biggest hits, from Drake’s ‘One Dance’ and Rihanna’s ‘Work’ to underground gems on Swing Ting and Mixpak.