This chapter explores the history of sound system and emcee culture. Originating in Jamaica, during the 1950s, the sound system has spawned numerous multi-billion dollar generating genres, including electronic dance music and hip-hop. The chapter outlines the contribution that figures such as Clement Dodd, Duke Reid, and Prince Buster made to the emergence of dancehall culture and the innovations of Count Machuki and U-Roy to the development of emceeing. It goes on to examine the role that sound system culture played in the birth of hip-hop, and the movement of artists from Jamaica, the United States and the UK, across the Atlantic, which has produced an outernational sound. The chapter reveals the ongoing significance of dubplates to garage music, clashing in grime, and riddims throughout the history of hip-hop culture. The chapter concludes with a consideration of the influence of the sound system on popular music culture across the globe.

There are two general well-formedness principles that shape the metrical grid: clash avoidance and lapse avoidance. Clash is a configuration on the metrical grid where two entries on one level do not have an intervening entry on the next level higher. Clash avoidance plays a key role in restricting the range of binary default systems predicted under a Weak Bracketing approach. It prefers patterns where overlapping feet share grid entries rather than mapping to separate entries. Clash avoidance is also plays a key role in producing rhythm rule effects, where prosodic word-level and phonological phrase-level prominences shift to create a more regular, even distribution. A lapse is a configuration where two adjacent entries on one level both fail to support an entry on the next level higher. Lapse avoidance plays a key role in creating the fine-grained prominence distinctions on the metrical grid that cannot be accounted for with MAP constraints. Finally, extended lapse is a configuration where three adjacent entries on one level all fail to support an entry on the next level higher. Extended lapse avoidance is the key factor in producing the few ternary patterns found among the world’s languages.

Default prominence patterns divide into two types: fixed and proportional. In fixed patterns, the number of prominences is constant regardless of the length of the form. Fixed patterns can be single (one prominence per form) or dual (two prominences per form). In proportional patterns, the number of prominences increases as the length of the form increases. Proportional prominence patterns can be either binary (prominence on every second syllable) or ternary (prominence on every third syllable). Phenomenal prominence systems may be either fixed or proportional. Metrical prominence patterns are always proportional. Metrical patterns are typically binary, very rarely ternary. All single and dual phenomenal patterns indicate binary metrical patterns. The simplest binary metrical patterns are the four patterns that exhibit perfect alternation. While each of the four perfect alternation patterns is attested, only a few of the possible departures from perfect alternation are attested. The pattern of attestation exhibits asymmetries that become clear when considering iambic-trochaic mirror image pairs. At most one member of such pairs is attested. With only four reasonably clear examples, ternary stress patterns are extremely rare, and is it impossible to make any significant generalizations about them with any degree of confidence.