Watch: Tash LC on Dancehall

A introduction to one of Jamaica's greatest exports.

"Jamaica is such a small island and has had such a huge impact on the world. There’s nowhere I’ve been that hasn’t been touched by Jamaican music.”

You can now watch Tash LC’s latest session from The Listening Room, where the DJ, record collector and presenter explores the development of dancehall through records and historical context.

Recorded inside The Listening Room at 180 Studios, the session sees Tash LC — a resident of the Listening Room — move chronologically through dancehall’s emergence in the late 1970s and tracing its evolution across the 1980s and 1990s. Drawing on key artists, producers, riddims and sound systems, she outlines how changes in technology, instrumentation and lyrical focus shaped the genre over time.

Alongside the history, Tash reflects on her own relationship to Jamaican music, which she describes as "non-linear". Despite growing up in a Caribbean family, reggae and dancehall initially felt distant before later becoming a core part of her listening and DJ practice.

This session repeatedly returns to the scale of Jamaica’s influence on music worldwide, highlighting how dancehall has travelled far beyond the island while remaining rooted in specific local traditions and practices.

Tash LC’s session forms part of The Listening Room’s ongoing programme, which invites artists, selectors and writers to explore music through focused listening, discussion and archival research. Other Listening Room sessions are available to watch via The Vinyl Factory's YouTube.

Watch the video above.