"Words Like Fire": The Birth of Rap in the Jamaican Dance Hall» is a groundbreaking study of one of Jamaica’s most influential yet underexplored art forms: dance hall poetry.
Based on extensive fieldwork this book offers an in-depth analysis of the origins, social context, musicality, rhythm, and performance patterns of what the author terms electro-oral poetry—a dynamic form of spoken word performed over rhythms supplied by a record player or digital device.
Originally written in German as a dissertation at the University of Zurich in 1986, this work is now finally available to English-speaking readers. To this day «Words Like Fire» shows in unmatched detail the art form of dance hall poetry and how it laid the foundation for what would become rap.
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