A book about the Jamaican tradition of using riddims and the difference between formal law and lived reality. When a riddim is used, “the DJ plays a recording of the instrumental parts of a song separated from the vocals so that a live performer can sing their own vocal line over it, or a producer records a succession of new vocal lines over a preexisting instrumental recording.” Mann concludes that “[m]ost Jamaican popular music has developed through practices that contradict a law supposedly intended to structure the behavior of creators and consumers.” The law is underenforced in Jamaica, however, and the Jamaica/rest of world interface hasn’t led to much change because the people who claim copyright interests in receiving royalties for Jamaican music are largely privileged and don’t need to trace ownership of the portions of works that they didn’t originate. Indeed, Jamaican music is apparently the third-largest industry, and a 1995 UN study puts “worldwide income from [Jamaican-based] reggae music at not below 3 percent” of global music production— “an impressive figure for an island with a population of around 2.5 million.” And yet Jamaican elites portray the music makers on the ground as generally lawless or disobedient. It’s a great look at how music is actually made and how little law might have to do with it—but that very lawlessness prevents music ( )