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Dancehall Pop
Dancehall pop is a sub-genre of Jamaican genre Dancehall that originated in the early 2000s. Developing from the sounds of reggae, dancehall pop is characteristically different in its fusion with western pop music and digital music production. Dancehall pop is also different to dancehall in that most songs use lesser Jamaican Patois in lyrics––allowing it to be globally understood and consumed. It also incorporates the key pop music elements of having melodies, hooks, and the verse-chorus format. Additionally, the genre moves away from the reggae and roots music origins in social and political protest, now lyrically centering on partying, dancing, and sexuality.

In the early 2000’s, dancehall pop had its entrance into the global mainstream music industry charts. By the 2010’s dancehall pop became a popular genre used by multiple western music artists and producers, with numerous chart topping songs affirming its mass-audience success.

Early development
As the sub-genre of its fathering music style Dancehall, dancehall pop combines instrumental reggae and drum patterns of Jamaican sound with the catchy melodies and mass audience appeal of pop music. The name of the genre itself is also credited to Jamaican music lifestyle,  where artists and producers would play music from sound systems in local dancehalls. The socio-political changes after the 1970’s government change in Jamaica affected dancehall styles, where lyrics moved away from political protest and more towards partying lifestyle. The dancehall genre trend of reusing beats, also known as “reworking”, is also still evident in dancehall pop as well, with many artists sampling old school dancehall track instrumentals––colloquially known as "riddims".

While dancehall music has its cultural origins in Jamaican sound and music, dancehall pop genre combines rhythm and sounds from across in the Caribbean including that of Soca, Calypso, and Reggaeton. The fusion between dancehall and pop is attributed to the early digitisation of musical production in Jamaica, where the format of pop music––such as the melodic verse-chorus structure and repeated choruses––could be combined with the fast paced instrumental rhythms of dancehall. Dancehall pop music did not make its mainstream arrival into the music industry until the early 2000s. Dancehall and soca songs such as Kevin Lyttle's "Turn Me On" and Rupee's "Tempted to Touch" both released in 2002 and 2003 respectively, are examples of the early combinations of digital pop style and Caribbean rhythms into the western music scene. It was dancehall pop artist Sean Paul, who released his second studio album Dutty Rock in 2002, including the hit singles "Get Busy" and "Gimmie the Light" that put the genre on highly rated chart positions, with the album reaching a peak position of number 4 on the US Billboard Hot 100 chart. Sean Paul's song collaboration on the album with at-the-time rising pop star, Beyonce, titled "Baby Boy", reached number 1 on the US Billboard Hot 100. This marked the beginning of the mainstream dancehall and pop fusion. Barbadian singer-songwriter Rihanna then released her debut single dancehall pop single in 2005, "Pon De Replay", which reached number two on the US Billboard Hot 100 and UK Singles Chart.

The genre had a small absence from the pop charts and then reemerged again in the 2010s with numerous Caribbean artists such as Kranium, Konshens, and Popcaan entering the dance-pop music charts. As these artists curated their names in the music industry, chart-topping pop artists like Drake, Rihanna, and Major Lazer incorporated the dancehall pop sounds into their respective hit singles "One Dance", "Work", and "Boom" which each gained top 20 spots on the US Billboard Hot 100. Drake's dancehall pop and rap inspired track, "One Dance", became a best-selling and chart-topping single, giving credit to the genre within the mainstream music scene. Named as the "song of the summer", the song which features Nigerian Afrobeats artist Wizkid and British singer Kyla received 757 million streams on music-streaming service Spotify and spent over two months as number 1 on the US Billboard Hot 100, largely contributing to the mass-audience recognition of dancehall pop.

The presence of the dancehall pop sound in mainstream pop music steadily continued into the 2010s, with the emergence of Caribbean artists featuring in Western pop hit songs such as Jamaican singer Kranium's song "Can't Believe" featuring American rapper Ty Dolla $ign, and British-Jamaican singer Stefflon Don's collaboration song "Hurtin Me" with American rapper French Montana, which both earned top 10 spots on the US Billboard Hot 100.

Characteristics
Dancehall pop adopted the instrumental "drum and bass lines" that were originally taken from reggae music accompaniment. The trend of voice-over ad-libs, mostly in the form of talking rather than singing, has remained a distinct characteristic in both dancehall and dancehall pop music style that grew from DJ's in Jamaican dance halls playing instrumental reggae tracks. The boom in digital production technology is one of the factors which led to the dancehall fusion with pop, in which multiple producers can remix, recreate, and access various types of sounds. This digitisation has allowed the trend of sampling and interpolating old dancehall and reggae riddims to continue into modern dancehall pop music, combining the pop melody and song format. For example, 1993 hit dancehall single "Murder She Wrote" by Chaka Demus & Pilers has been interpolated multiple times to form chart-topping singles such as Omarion and Chris Browns "Post to Be", Nicki Minaj and French Montana's "Freaks", and Jason Derulo's "Too Hot". While such song maintain dancehall melodies, they adopt the verse-chorus and hook format used in most pop songs.

Lyrics in dancehall songs are usually written and sung using both english and Jamaican patois. To make dancehall pop music easily understood, Jamaican patois is used lesser in songs that feature western pop artists that release music in english. Popular patois slang terms that have become popularised as a result of cultural attributes absorption into pop culture, and rising multiculturalism, are continuously incorporated into dancehall pop songs. Rihanna's number 1 single "Work" is almost entirely sung in a combination of the singers native Bajan patois and english, with Canadian rapper Drake's following hook incorporating elements of patois into his verse as well. Popular patois slang, adopted from languages across the Caribbean, such as "ting", "man dem", and "dun know" are now found in lyrics outside the dancehall and dancehall pop genres, most often in hip-hop and rap music.