«Words Like Fire: The Birth of Rap in the Jamaican Dance Hall» is a groundbreaking study of one of Jamaica’s most influential yet underexplored art forms: dance hall poetry.

Based on extensive fieldwork this book offers an in-depth analysis of the origins, social context, musicality, rhythm, and performance patterns of what the author terms electro-oral poetry—a dynamic form of spoken word performed over rhythms supplied by a record player or digital device. 

Originally written in German as a dissertation at the University of Zurich in 1986, this work is now finally available to English-speaking readers. To this day «Words Like Fire» shows in unmatched detail how the art form of dance hall poetry laid the foundation for what would become rap.