Dancehall Queens

Once a subcultural dancehall trend among ragga girls, nail art – including oversized acrylics painted with intricate designs, transfer stickers, neon brights and quirky sculpting

has been taken up by the highest luxury brands, from Chanel, whose pale green jade enamel varnish was a sell-out earlier this year, to Alexander McQueen?, whose spring/summer 2010 show featured models with metallic etchings of octopuses lacquered onto their fingertips.

The top deejays of dancehall are Mavado and Vybz Kartel whose explicit recordings and tribalised fans fuells the ‘gully versus gaza’ divide. But Kartel and former mentor Bounty Killer also trade lyrical curses along with Flippa Mafia and Elephant Man.

Dancehall queen are not worried about their daughters turning into dancehall daggerers, session addicts, ladies-of-two-colours (bleached and unbleached) and all the assorted ills some associate with dancehall because of their second-hand introduction?

Most Dancehall queens have sampled every possible kind of marijuana at dances and stage shows and maybe have sampled the stuff direct from the joint, and that was at someone’s home, not in a dancehall.

They have beene been surrounded by every conceivable kind of liquor – and most don’t drink alcohol maybe for the rare tipple.