Dancehall and Doiley Boyz: dancehall and its rituals in Jamaican Culture

Dope exhibit, definitely worth checking out if you're in chi town.



Dancehall and Doiley Boyz
dancehall and its rituals in Jamaican culture

By Terry Glover

Ebony G. Patterson is a Jamaican artist exploring issues of gender, body and cultural identity. Her Dancehall Series, included in the Art Chicago exhibition this spring, is especially striking for its depictions of Jamaican dancehall culture and the practice of skin bleaching among its men. Holding a place very much like hiphop in the United States, dancehall has been criticized for its violent, misoginist, and homophobic stance. Patterson takes these cultural notions and addresses them in a way that allows for no response other than candid discussion. She sat down with ebonyjet.com to explain the origins and evolution of the series.


Describe your objectives in creating the Dancehall series.
The Dancehall series explores masculinity but as it relates to dancehall space within Jamaican culture -- the quintessential idea of what it is to be male, and how notions of homosexuality function there.

My explorations talking about bodies in general as objects, especially in terms of limbs, a removal of parts, more of an object, we can see the body.

For the last couple of years I’ve been exploring that notion with skin bleaching, I’ve always had an interest in discussions of beauty and the grotesque and the objectification, something more urgent to speak to. I am a huge supporter of dancehall culture and have been scrutinized by my colleagues for my support of dancehall. Colleagues would get at me for being interested in the music. Could be me becoming a little older and therefore a little wiser, but I can appreciate certain aspects. This unapologetic stance it takes – very raw, very in your face. That’s the essence of dancehall.

And your work…
Thank you. Always felt it was my responsibility to confront my audience and have them question the way they see things and the discussion that’s going on between my work and them.

Dancehall is coming under a lot of scrutiny now. But, it’s very different when you immerse yourself in the space.

I’m thinking about what happens in a lot of songs and what happens in terms of gender relationships within dancehall and how that echoes out into Jamaican society. By extension it’s quite difficult. Here in the States, Black men are expected to be aggressive, powerful, aggression is measured for what it means to be black – very very sad.

I decided to take these people who are put on a platform within that dancehall space -- worship of a don or a “shotta” -- a bad man -- and peel it down to the very feminine, beautiful men using all of the things that are within the dance hall vernacular. Particularly as it relates to the rise of skin bleaching among these guys. Such a work, I thought, would call into question what it means to be masculine.

Bleaching used to be predominantly among women – at one point men doing this was considered gay. Now, it’s far more popular among men and the women have been marginalized. Bleaching used to be for purposes of social mobility. Now people involved in illegal activities are doing it.


When did you start focusing on the practice as a subject for your work?
About two years ago. One of my friends’ family members was bleaching – a young boy – about 2 years ago, I had driven on the street to drop off my friend, and here was this tall silhouette, dark skin and I saw this yellow glow in the dark. Who is that? I was in total shock. Here was this incredibly beautiful young man with the most amazing skin who saw it necessary to bleach his face.

So I did a photo shoot and sat with them to find out why they were doing this. This was the wrong crowd, They were not bleaching skin, putting on a suit and going uptown for work. Something else was motivating it.

I wanted to discuss how beauty meets criminality. There was an article in the Jamaican Gleaner about criminals bleaching skin to elude the police -- all very interesting to me at the time. It wasn’t until going downtown to teach at the summer camps that I would see a lot more of these men with brown faces and dark necks. So, I started with the premise of just painting what I saw. Which evolved to ‘what if I took mug shots of criminals – to see wouldn’t it be interesting to see what the criminals in mug shots would look like?’ Straddling the line between criminality and beauty.

This, of course, depends on what parts of dancehall we’re talking about. Not Sean Paul, but gangsta lyrics called “gun lyrics,” a lyrical assassination. But even outside of gun lyrics, sometimes you hear DJs applauding or bigging up persons who are wanted by the police – a “shotta” essentially a shooter, a bad man.

My interest in doing this project really had a lot more to do with looking at issues of gender, ideas of beauty and how the grotesque is now sought after as beauty -- kind of the emasculation of black identity thru the skimming of pigmentation. Almost see people who bleach skin as hybrid beings.

A cultural hybrid?

In some ways, yes.

There was a show back home, “Our Voices” and during one show, they brought 2 or 3 people who had been bleaching their skin and brought on a doctor to talk about the effects and why they should stop. One guy was incredibly dark naturally, and he was pink. He had bleached his entire body, straightened his hair, and according to Jamaican constructs he was unequivocally gay. He took metrosexuality to a whole other level.

The interviewers asked about daily regimen – buying creams in cases, “If I have a dance coming up in 2 weeks, we’ll bleach intensely for the next 2 weeks because being brown has a particular cleanness to it.”

The Michael Jackson bleaching cream was a favorite of his.

These creams are loaded w/ steroids. Some are legal and fine to use on market, a lot of third world countries are dumping grounds for inferior products. Britain has a heavy crackdown on illegal, steroid based cream. The Minister of Health has had an anti-bleaching campaign going on for a while. Once you stop bleaching, you go back to your original color, but it’s a very unnatural hue.

But, even if they were to get all creams – legal and illegal – people know how to make their own concoctions. Some use bleach – household detergent. I’ve also been told about yellow curry – very popular in the Caribbean – mix a little curry in. People are incredibly creative in the way they go about creating these concoctions.

Aside from the health hazards, do the guys understand the negative implications bleaching carries?
As far as younger people are concerned, it has nothing to do with social mobility or self hatred. The guys I interviewed said its all about reinventing self, a new self image. They get tired of the same look. They will tell you, “I‘m not bleaching because I hate myself.” They are very proud.

When I was growing up, if you were a man who pierced your ear, it was frowned upon – incredibly feminine. Eventually it became accepted that piercing the right side was OK, The left side? Homosexual. Interesting that the once homosexual has now been taken up by homophobic men. One of the ironies of the Black community.

But it still doesn’t change mentality or attitudes about the way we determine what happens among genders within Black families. White families don’t relate masculinity to a particular level of aggression.

Have any of the dancehall guys seen your finished work?
No, this body of work has not seen Jamaica yet. Earlier this year I was invited to do installation at National Gallery. Photos I’d taken of two young men were used in the installation. Lot of response from art community.

But, dancehall isn’t integrated into the mainstream in the same way hiphop is here. There is no interests in visual expression of dancehall – it is strictly about the music, maybe the fashion. There has always been an incredible divide between uptown and downtown. They are poor people -- don’t need to worry about that. Bringing a piece like this that brings this problem into an “elitist” space reveals something to an audience they may not have been aware of it. It will open up their eyes a lot more, so not so much a lost cause.

What about The Doiley Boyz?
I’m expanding the series. It’s the same thing as with males but with young male boys as subjects. Skin bleaching is affecting a much younger age range now. I’m interested in the implications of how men’s experiences affect younger boys.

I’m always thinking of the repetitious nature of making something that’s incredibly delicate, beautiful. I wanted to find an object that was domestic in relation to the feminine. I started with silhouette cut-outs of boys’ portraits – all on doilies, very floral. So again, aligning with the feminine, which I thought appropriate.


What’s next?
I just worked on my first video installation in Kentucky “Another Dance” about dancehall sound clash culture (when two sound systems – many people -- “Stone Love” is one of the oldest collide) “Murder ‘Pon a Sound Boy” – the lyrics are quite violent, but people continue dancing on this very beautiful background.

I felt like there was something incredibly earnest that nobody was talking about. Not my objective to do something sensationalist, but it is my responsibility to talk about what is going on in my country. To talk about it and what do we really consider to be Jamaican and how does this contribute to the way we are constructing our identity.

I’m working on my first curatorial project, bringing in several Jamaican artists who explore identity as relates to gender, as relates to identity. Thought it would be interesting to have a visual conversation to talk about these things that aren’t articulated enough -- self and understanding who we are as a people. Eventually we start to carbon copy everything. We’ve lost a lot of things that were inherently Caribbean. The question has always been thrown out to young people about not being “Caribbean enough” by our parents. What does that mean? If it comes from us, it’s still Jamaican.

I am passionately Jamaican, even when the shit is hitting the fan. If everybody leaves, how will things get better? My work has always, in one way or another, dealt with issues of identity and notions of body politics and the way I see myself within the space I exist in – Jamaica.

I don’t know how much more Jamaican I can get.

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Terry Glover is Senior Editor for ebonyjet.com. She writes about art, culture and popular trends.