« back

maxine walters - serious things a go happen: three decades of jamaican dancehall signs - hat & beard - books

Genre: Reggae / Dub

An unofficial history of Jamaican dancehall music told through its graphic design, Serious Things a Go Happen brings together more than 100 original posters and signs from the early 1980s through today, drawn from the poster collection of Jamaican film and television producer and director Maxine Walters.

.
Over the past three decades Walters, who has been called �the queen of Jamaican dancehall signs,� has amassed a collection of some 4,000 of these street posters, advertising local �bashments� held at bars, on beaches and in primary schools. Treated by most Jamaicans as simply a fact of life, the dancehall poster has until recently received little careful, critical attention; this volume begins to rectify that with essays by Vivien Goldman, Carolyn Cooper and others, alongside the posters themselves, reproduced one to a page in full color. The book also includes text and interviews with Rory Stone Love & Mikey Bennett, Denva Harris, and Tony Winkler, author of The Lunatic.