'Chi-Chi Man Fi Get Sladi' 1 : Exploring Homophobia as Alternative Discourses of Masculinity in Dancehall Culture Donna P. Hope INTRODUCTION Jamaican dancehall culture evolved in the political economy of the early 1980 s when increasing economic and social pressures forced many dispossessed Jamaicans to find creative economic and social solutions. Dancehall music culture evolved out of the inner-cities of Kingston as one facet of an informal economy that represented an organic response to the social, political, and economic constraints of Jamaica in the 1980s. Dancehall's cultural revolt from the underbelly of popular culture in Jamaica operates simultaneously within and beyond the patriarchal gender ideologies of traditional Jamaican society. Many dancehall lyrics represent one overwhelming strain of a cultural dialogue of gendered identity that draws on the historical and cultural legacies of Jamaica where many Jamaican men who are positioned at the lower levels of the 1 A line from Elephant Man and Ward 21's 2000 treatise "Anything A Anything". It means "Male homosexuals should be slain". 'Chi-Chi Man Fi Get Sladi' / Donna P. Hope | xxx