Toasting is a style of lyrical chanting which in Dancehall music involves a deejay talking over a riddim. Though the art of chanting over a beat is quite ancient, and found in many African-based musical traditions, Toasting became quite popular in Jamaica in the late 1960s and early 1970s. With the use of "sound systems" (traveling deejays and producers with large speakers and a library of beats and riddims) Toasting became a part of the musical entertainment.

Toasting has been used in various ways, whether it is chanting over a drum beat, as well as in Jamaican music forms, like incorporating it with genres such as Ska, Reggae, Dancehall, and Dub. Toasting is also often used in Soca and Bouyon music as well. Toasting's mix of talking and chanting may have influenced the development of MCing in the US Hip Hop music scene and now has channeled other forms such as singjaying which is the combination of singing and toasting.

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