1. Sample sizes - far too small in each case.
Sample size could always be bigger, but roughly 50 tracks each for ragga and non-ragga is quite a lot; they get a track each for every week of 1994.
of course, once you deviate from a 2/4 snare pattern does that automatically mean its 'Latin'? You would need some very firm definitions to back up an analysis like this.
I didn’t go into depth about definitions on my posts for the sake of my (and every one else’s) sanity. However, here are the precise snare emphasis I was using to define Bosa Nova-ish (minus the 1 on the first beat of each two bar phrase):
. Too much emphasis on the Latin influence on dancehall. Sure, there is a strong thread of Latin influence in Jamaican music, particularly from salsa in the 40's/early 50's, and some early rocksteady and reggae tunes are at least partially based on Latin standards. Also, Carribean music in general shares some of the same rhythmic characteristics, Calypso, Son, Merengue, Soca, Salsa, Mento... so it might be more accurate to see African traditions as a common influence rather than Latin music influencing everything else.
May well be true. Either way dancehall is the way most junglists would have been exposed to these kind of rhythms. Outside jazz, these kind of rhythms are largely absent from black american music of the last century.
With regard to dancehall itself, it was around for 10 years before Punanny introduced the boom-boom-chick pattern, and it's one of the most rhythmically promiscuous genres around... Hip-hop, Pocomania, Kumina, Banghra, Mento & various Reggae rhythms are all utilised, there was a huge amount of output, tons of studio experimentation, loads of competition between studios and producers... so Im not sure exactly how much you can pin on the Latin influence.
I’m by no means saying dancehall is mono-rhythmic, but anyone familiar with dancehall in the early 90’s would have been well acquainted with boom boom chick and tressillo over 4.
is the main problem here I think. The thesis is inherently unprovable. Im pretty sure most of the producers of those tunes would say that they were simply trying to make breaks work in the studio.
A lot of rappers wouldn't say they are taking part in a tradition that dated back to scat singing. Lots of people making Calypso, Son, Merengue, Soca, Salsa, Mento wouldn't say that they are trying to elicit traditional african music. I'm sure there's tons of people making brostep who don't know who Kraftwerk are. None of this nullifies lineage. Again I’d stress that rewinds, dubplates, MC’s, ragga jungle, bass, etc. are widely acknowledged as Jamaican holdovers, so by extension it’s not far fetched to suggest that the rhythms might also owe debt to dancehall.
the other hand this might just as well weaken your argument... Tons of dancehall samples included bass, drums or other rhythmic elements as well as the vocal, so it would make sense for jungle producers to build around these elements rather than fight against them.
Well on that count, can we both agree that these kind of rhythms, when used in ragga jungle, are derived from dancehall? Is this an admission that these rhythms are a likely outcome if you're using sampled breaks to match/complement dancehall rhythmic emphasis?
If the influence is less present in non-ragga jungle then this could show that there was no pervasive influence, just a reaction to the musical elements present in some of the source material...
The influence is less relative to ragga jungle, but these rhythms are nonetheless THE dominant idiom in the non-ragga jungle of 1994 as well.
