ENTITY · PERSON
Gerald "Bogle" Levy / Mr. Wacky
Well supported
Gerald Levy, known as Bogle and later as Mr. Wacky, the dancer who did more than anyone to make dancehall choreography a named, authored thing. The Bogle, the Willie Bounce and a run of others came from him, and the pattern he set — a dance with a name, a creator and a record to carry it — is how dancehall movement has worked ever since. He was shot dead in Kingston in 2005.
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How people argued about the music — praise, criticism and public debate. See all debate & reception →
commentary
Dancers are authors of dancehall history
Dancehall dance creators and crews should be credited as cultural authors, not treated only as background performers in artist stories.
Stance: artist-centred history vs dancer authorship
debate
Male dancers and the effeminacy charge
The rise of male dance stars and crews in the 2000s (in the lineage of Bogle/Gerald Levy and the Black Roses Crew, then Ding Dong's Ravers Clavers) sharpened a gender argument: elaborate, fluid, fashion-forward male moves and 'out and bad' styling were read by some in a homophobic dancehall context as effeminate or 'gay', while dancers and scholars argued the moves were a legitimate, hyper-visible form of masculine artistry and inner-city creativity (Jamaica Observer, 'Masculinity and dancehall', 2011; academic work by Patrick Helber). The tension coexisted with dancehall's broader documented homophobia and the international 'Stop Murder Music' controversies.
Stance: acrobatic, stylish male dancing as valid masculine creative artistry vs suspicion that expressive/effeminate movement signals homosexuality
editorial
Who owns the move? Dancers as uncredited creative labour
As street-dance videos and DVDs made dancers briefly famous in the 2000s, commentary questioned the economics of the dance-song feedback loop: dancers invented moves (Bogle, Willie Bounce, Dutty Wine, Nuh Linga and others) that fuelled hit records and riddims, yet often went uncredited and unpaid while artists and promoters captured the value. The Jamaica Gleaner's 'Dancehall's dancers go hungry' (28 Apr 2013) documented dancers' complaints that the collapse of street dances under the Noise Abatement crackdown left them without income.
Stance: dancers as originators owed credit and pay for moves that drive songs vs a system where recording artists and promoters reap the returns