Jamaican Nightlife

Jamaican’s love their music. That’s perhaps the most important aspect of their culture, and the island’s biggest export. Hand in hand with this goes a love of dancing – Jamaicans have many different styles of dancing and the night life of the island is famed around the world.

Unsurprisingly, I had major expectations of clubbing in Jamaica. My host cousin Crystal, a twenty year old student in Kingston, had told me all about it; all Jamaican dancehall tunes have a particular dance to accompany it, promoted in the music video – many of them extraordinarily energetic. It is the ambition of every trendy young person to learn the moves and perform them on the dance floor; Crystal assured me that some people can actually do back flips and break dancing in the middle of the clubs, with people crowding around them in support. If you know the dance that matches the song, you become the coolest person there.

Consequently, I was more than a little disappointed with the club in Negril. It was the biggest one I have ever been to, with two huge floors and five or six different bars. But the dance floor was filled with sunburnt westerners; very few Jamaican’s were dancing; and after about 2am, we were almost the only ones there.

But Montego Bay, Jamaica’s second largest city, had greater promise. Margaritaville is one of the most famous clubs on the island. It is extraordinarily tacky: it has a plastic sea plane floating from the ceiling, the stage is a fake ship, and the DJ deck is in a colourful plastic shark mouth. It’s all rather like Disney Land. However, the atmosphere was electric; the DJs were incredibly talented. The sunburnt westerners largely left by midnight, whilst well dressed, hip young Jamaican’s poured in.

It was an amazing night with some truly spectacular dancing. Whilst there were no back flips (disappointingly), it was clear that Jamaican’s knew how to dance; the music is super loud whilst club goers compete for who can wear the least and move the most. And move they did; two guys dressed to the nines knew the steps to virtually every song played, and could move their body with extraordinary rapidity and dexterity, performing to a hooting crowd circled around them. Meanwhile, women in their hot pants and skimpy clothes performed some truly outrageous moves on their male counterparts – a lot of Jamaican dancing is simulated sex, with women competing for who can bend over the furthest (and gee whizz are they flexible). I won’t go into details.

It was a night to remember, eclipsed only in enjoyment by Sumfest the evening after. Jamaicans know how to party.