Dancehall City: Zongo Identity and Jamaican Rude Performance in Ghanaian Popular Culture

The explosion of Ghanaian Reggae-Dancehall reflects the influence of Jamaican-inspired popular culture in Ghana today. This subculture is championed by local Rastafarians and by youth from the zongos (internal migrant, largely Islamic, unplanned neighborhoods). Suffering social alienation, many zongo artists have adopted postures similar to their Jamaican counterparts-mirroring Rasta and rude identities as counter-hegemonic resistance. Alleyne explores several artists variously located between the zongo, the Reggae diaspora, and the Ghanaian state, examining how subjects rework Jamaican tropes and voice their aspirations within a globalizing Ghana and rethinking the zongo as space of rousing diasporic consciousness.