Serious Things A Go Happen : Three Decades of Jamaican Dancehall Signs

By Maxine Walters

"If hip-hop's visual language is graffiti, then dancehall's visual language is the sign, the event poster - the notice that big t'ings a gwaan down di street. Take the analogy further and the differences are as noteworthy as the similarities : both are signifiers, even though graffiti signifies the artist himself, while the dancehall sign signifies an event. One is mostly expression, while the other is mostly communication. (...) It would be a surprise to many of the people who made these signs that this medium, where function triumphs over form every time, should emerge as its own art."

Intro by Marlon James

Edited y J.C. Gabel & Vivien Goldman

Printed and Published by Hat & Beard, Los Angeles

167pp

8 by 9.5 inches

Perfect bound with sewn signatures