According to Carolyn Cooper in "Sound Clash", written in 2004, dancehall music and its following were frequently attacked for frequent references to guns and violence in lyrics, with Cooper responding by arguing that the emergence of firearms was less a sign of genuinely violent undercurrents in dancehall and more a theatrical adoption of the role of guns as tools of power. That ties into the concepts of the badman, a defiant, rebellious figure who often use a gun to maintain a level of respect and fear.  Said concepts, Cooper argues, originate in historical resistance to slavery and emulation of imported films, specifically North American action films with gun-wielding protagonists.