Reggae and Rastafari studies

Aqualung gaze nothing spares. ANDY lived in New York during late 1970s and in their Jamaica he experienced the emotional cocktail of surveillance frenzy and racial/religious discrimination. Spying Glass. In Gayatri Spivak ‘s conception of the subaltern, what you see you don’t see. Trancey bass spurrs the outnumbered performance of a melancholic echo-drenched voice bursting through white walls of mythology. The Rude Boy imagery already a ragged translation of that silence into moving pictures, transient regalia wired to no avail project the dissonance further on downtown. No shame MASSIVE ATTACK ghost trains couldn’t compete with ANDY onboard.

An important center of dancehall reggae performance, sound clashes are contests between rival sound systems: groups of emcees, tune selectors, and sound engineers. In World Clash 1999, held in Brooklyn, Mighty Crown, a Japanese sound system and the only non-Jamaican competitor, stunned the international dancehall community by winning the event. In 2002, the Japanese dancer Junko Kudo became the first non-Jamaican to win Jamaica’s National Dancehall Queen Contest. High-profile victories such as these affirmed and invigorated Japan’s enthusiasm for dancehall reggae. In Babylon East , the anthropologist Marvin D. Sterling traces the history of the Japanese embrace of dancehall reggae and other elements of Jamaican culture, including Rastafari, roots reggae, and dub music. Sterling provides a nuanced ethnographic analysis of the ways that many Japanese involved in reggae as musicians and dancers, and those deeply engaged with Rastafari as a spiritual practice, seek to reimagine their li...

As COVID-19 infections surge in Europe, I publish the letter below in the hope of facilitating the freer and more personally liberating discussion of the causes and "cures" of this disease that I believe the Getty Conservation Institute based "materials scientist" Dr. Ilaria Cianchetta and I agree is desirable if the most beneficial outcomes of science are to be assured.
The article also allows a "crystal twinning", tin cry comparison of the tragically deluded and deceased Jamaican "Crown Bishop" Kevin Smith's, my and others COVID-19 journeys and star treks.
Documents some of my academic challenges over the past year the article is labeled a "chronicle" but could just as easily be called an "oracle".
I certainly believe the allusion to the biblical books of Kings and Chronicles is a work of divine providence.
But it is not my intention to force this view on anyone.
Like the late Jamaican deejay chemist Toyan (Byron Letts), I am a scientist, first and foremost.
I am not a "thought policeman".

Women and Resistance in the Early Rastafari Movement is a pioneering study of women’s resistance in the emergent Rastafari movement in colonial Jamaica. As D. A. Dunkley demonstrates, Rastafari women had to contend not only with the various attempts made by the government and nonmembers to suppress the movement, but also with oppression and silencing from among their own ranks. Dunkley examines the lives and experiences of a group of Rastafari women between the movement’s inception in the 1930s and Jamaica’s independence from Britain in the 1960s, uncovering their sense of agency and resistance against both male domination and societal opposition to their Rastafari identity. Countering many years of scholarship that privilege the stories of Rastafari men, Women and Resistance in the Early Rastafari Movement reclaims the voices and narratives of early Rastafari women in the history of the Black liberation struggle.

This book examines the post-1960s era of popular music in the Anglo-Black Atlantic through the prism of historical theory and methods. By using a series of case studies, this book mobilizes historical theory and methods to underline different expressions of alternative music functioning within a mainstream musical industry. Each chapter highlights a particular theory or method while simultaneously weaving it through a genre of music expressing a notion of alternativity―an explicit positioning of one’s expression outside and counter to the mainstream. Historical Theory and Methods through Popular Music seeks to fill a gap in current scholarship by offering a collection written specifically for the pedagogical and theoretical needs of those interested in the topic.

“This study of ‘insurgent’ modes of popular music in the last third of the 20th century accomplishes quite a feat.  It yokes together a wide swath of sub-genres and styles--including reggae, punk, hip hop, alternative rock and country—through the lens of what the authors are calling “historical theory,” in order to chart a different, more comprehensive pathway through the annals of pop music history.  Shonk and McClure achieve an enviable balance of accessibility and scholarly depth, making this volume ideal for introductory college courses as well as more experienced researchers seeking a quick guide to specialized topics.”

--Pamela Fox, author of Natural Acts: Gender, Race, and Rusticity in Country Music; co-author of Old Roots, New Routes: The Cultural Politics of Alt.Country Music

In the Jamaican folk pharmacopoeia, cannabis -- known locally as "ganja" -- occupies a special place.  Its use by large numbers of Rastafarians as a religious sacrament, its widespread cultivation as a lucrative crop, and its close association with the reggae industry have all contributed to its notoriety.  Although the plant has been present in the island for many generations, its local history has been only very sketchily documented.  This paper uses oral traditions, ethnographic data, and other sources to shed light on aspects of its local history and cultural background that have been largely neglected in the available literature.

The bachelor's thesis focuses on Reggae artists from Vienna (Austria) and their perception of the Rastafari philosophy. The Rastafarian movement originates from the Caribbean island of Jamaica and has advocated Black Power from the very beginning. In the context of globalisation the movement's rebellious philosophy has been adapted and nowadays Rastafari inspires millions of people regardless of the skin colour. Via the movement's strongest communication medium, Reggae music, the uplifting and Africa-oriented philosophy has also found its way to Vienna's music scene. The thesis represents a collection of the opinions of Vienna-based Reggae artists as I analyse their narratives about Rastafari's values and ideas.

El rastafarismo es un movimiento político y religioso negro de principios del siglo XX que nació del movimiento activista de negros y mestizos en su lucha por la igualdad de derechos sociales. Se fundamenta en la resistencia negra a la opresión blanca y ve la emanci-pación social como único fin. No tienen una organización centralizada. Así practican diferentes creencias (como el voto de "nazareato") y la mayoría veneran a Ras Safari (Haile Selassie I), antiguo emperador de Etiopía de descendencia salomónica. El rastafarismo combina creencias milenarias de origen africano con influencias del cristianismo fundamentalis-ta norteamericano, en especial de la Iglesia Bautista, además de la tradición hindú. No se trata de una religión: no es una organización, no existe un "directorio", los rastafaris no autorizan un poder organizado, que consideran malo. El rastafarismo es una actitud y una forma de entender la vida.

Mi a reggae? Hogyan néz ki Magyarországon? Kik a hallgatóság? Miként vélekednek egyes értékekről, közösségről, az életről és Magyarországról?

A tanulmány kvalitatív és kvantitatív módszerrel tárja fel és mutatja be a magyarországi reggae zene kulturális közösségét. Eredetileg szakdolgozatként készült, egyéni kapacitáshiány miatt átdolgozása nem sikerült, így a „túlmagyarázás” a külső egyetemi kereteknek való megfelelésnek tudható be.

Abstract: This article presents Paul Ricœur’s hermeneutic of the productive imagination as a methodological tool for understanding the innovative social function of texts that in exceeding their semantic meaning, iconically augment reality. Through the reasoning of Rastafari elder Mortimo Planno’s unpublished text, Rastafarian: The Earth’s Most Strangest Man, and the religious and biblical signification from the music of his most famous postulate, Bob Marley, this article applies Paul Ricœur’s schema of the religious productive imagination to conceptualize the metaphoric transfer from text to life of verbal and iconic images of Rastafari’s hermeneutic of word, sound and power. This transformation is accomplished through what Ricœur terms the phenomenology of the iconic augmentation of reality. Understanding this semantic innovation is critical to understanding the capacity of the religious imagination to transform reality as a proclamation of hope in the midst of despair.

Mustapha Matura, who was personally involved in the colonial history, has produced literary works associated with the postcolonial movement. In his pieces, he has shown the effects of colonialism on individuals even though the colonial period is over. In one of those works, Welcome Home Jacko, he employs Rastafarianism as a resistance against colonialism. In this context, this paper seeks to show how individuals are keen to create their own identities free from the colonial/European influence although some characters still bear the European ideology of superiority since they tend to perform mimicry. Within this framework, the study aims to reveal whether the postcolonial individual has, indeed, decolonized his/her psyche in consideration of fundamental (post)colonial concepts.

On Sunday, June 7, 2020, protesters at an anti-racism demonstration in the city of Bristol, England toppled a statue of a man named Edward Colston and dumped it in the Bristol Harbour.  It was a great surprise for me to find that the statue had been erected in his honour because he had contributed so much to making Bristol a wealthy British city by shipping, selling and enslaving African people. Moreover, he had in fact played a major role in my own Jamaican life three hundred years ago as head of the largest and richest British company-the Royal African Company-that made its wealth by selling and enslaving Africans to the Caribbean, including my own country Jamaica.

El tema de investigación de este trabajo es, por supuesto, la música Rastafari, y su objeto es la relación entre la música nyahbinghi y la música reggae. En cuanto a la delimitación espacial de la investigación, ésta no se ubica en un espacio geográfico restringido, sin embargo, el trabajo de campo se centró, primordialmente, en Jamaica y, de manera complementaria, en México. Respecto a su delimitación temporal, la relación entre ambas expresiones musicales se aborda desde finales de los años sesenta, momento de la aparición del reggae, hasta el presente. Sin embargo, es necesario conocer también información previa importante acerca del surgimiento y los antecedentes de la música nyahbinghi. Asimismo, la delimitación semántica de este trabajo requiere tener claridad en cuanto al significado del nyahbinghi y del reggae para poder evitar cualquier tipo de confusión. De esta manera, podemos decir que la música nyahbinghi, por lo general, incluye la recitación de salmos, pero también puede incluir variaciones de cantos cristianos protestantes conocidos y adoptados por los Rastafari y en los que se emplean los tambores nyahbinghi que son comunes a todos los Rastafari. Los ritmos nyahbinghi fueron en gran medida una creación del músico Count Ossie, quien a inicios de los cincuenta incorporó influencias de los tradicionales tambores burru con canciones y ritmos extraídos de las grabaciones del músico nigeriano Babatunde Olatunji. Por su parte, en 1968, se escuchó en Jamaica por primera vez la palabra “reggae” en la canción de Toots and the Maytals “Do the reggay”, inaugurando así este género como parte de la evolución de la música popular jamaicana.
Esta investigación considera que conocer las similitudes, diferencias y relaciones histórico-culturales entre la música nyahbinghi y la música reggae contribuirá a desarrollar una mejor comprensión y entendimiento de la historia y los aportes culturales de estas expresiones por parte de las propias comunidades y grupos que le dan vida a estas prácticas y también por parte de la audiencia de estos géneros a nivel internacional.

Aunque con una gran herencia y diversidad cultural, Belice representa un país joven y en crecimiento, oscilando entre ser un país centroamericano y caribeño. Una de las tantas características de este país vecino es el ser uno de los
pocos en América Latina que tiene el inglés como lengua oficial debido a su herencia británica. Este hecho con todos los elementos culturales que conlleva, lo acerca más a países del Caribe anglófono como Jamaica, que a países como Guatemala, a pesar de la cercanía geográfica. Precisamente una de las huellas
que Inglaterra dejó en los territorios que tomó como colonias, fue la presencia de la población negra descendiente de los esclavos que fueron sacados de África para distribuirlos en sus colonias de América continental y el Caribe. Esta presencia de la población negra es fuertemente notable en Belice, al grado de que el movimiento Rastafari originado en Jamaica encontró un lugar importante dentro de la diversidad cultural de este país. Precisamente con este grupo (los Rastafari de Belice), en particular con los que viven en Belmopán es con quienes se desarrolla esta investigación que busca analizar la importancia sociocultural de la música en este grupo.

This book is discussing patterns of radical religious thought in popular forms of Black music. The consistent influence of the Five Percent Nation on Rap music as one of the most esoteric groups among the manifold Black Muslim movements has already gained scholarly attention. However, it shares more than a strong pattern of reversed racism with the Bobo Shanti Order, the most rigid branch of the Rastafarian faith, globally popularized by Dancehall-Reggae artists like Sizzla or Capleton. Authentic devotion or calculated marketing? Apart from providing a possible answer to this question, the historical shift of Bobo adherents from shunned extremists to firmly anchored personifications of authenticity in mainstream Rastafarian culture is being emphasized. A multi-layered comparative case study attempts to shed light on the re-contextualization of language as well as expressed dogmatic perceptions and symbolism, attitude towards other religious groups and aspects of ethnic discrimination. Further analysis includes the visibility of artists and their references to practical and moral issues directly derived from two obscure ideologies that managed to conquer airwaves and concert halls.

L’identité noire marque de son empreinte l’évolution de la musique populaire jamaïcaine contemporaine. Cet article mesure l’influence des affirmations de l’identité noire sur l’évolution du reggae au dancehall. L’auteur présente l’ambiguïté qui caractérise le discours des artistes concernant l’appartenance ethnique, l’identité nationale, ainsi que la question du rapport à l'ordre politique postcolonial. Cette étude montre en particulier comment le dancehall utilise la question raciale comme un moyen de résistance, en l’inscrivant dans une forme nouvelle d’expression urgente de préoccupations socio-économiques.

This paper is concerned with examining why; (in what was until recently a predominantly mono-cultural society) some individuals in Ireland became interested in the overtly black musical form reggae and its accompanying culture. We begin by examining some of the literature with regard to white appropriation of black music. We then trace the history of reggae music from its roots in 1950’s Jamaica across the Atlantic to Britain arguing that to examine reggae appropriation in Ireland; we must first examine the Jamaican-British nexus. We examine how the music progressed in Britain along two distinct trajectories; firstly within mainstream culture, and secondly and more importantly for this for this paper within British subculture. We then move to our ethnographic section. Here we explore the findings of several interviews we conducted with individuals involved in reggae subculture in Ireland. Lastly we draw some interesting conclusions from our research which we present at the end of this paper.

Jamaica's capital city, is home to a cohort of creative and music industry workers organizing for creative industrial development and social uplift. This article uses interviews and textual analysis to historicize and contextualize one group, Manifesto Jamaica, and situates its work alongside close readings of new music written by political Jamaican artists organizing alongside Manifesto under the umbrella of the "Reggae Revival." The groups' media are characterized by two themes: (1) a cross-textual referencing practice connected to the Rastafari folk religion's concept of livity, or collectivity; and (2) an intentional troubling of temporal order, which connects the politics and people of the 1970s reggae golden age to today through the use of riddims, or backing tracks. Together, Manifesto Jamaica and the Reggae Revival represent creative industries development and cultural production in a specific neocolonial and Afro-diasporic global context that is worthy of study for its connection to previous histories and its impact today.

The Rastafari movement is a socio-political and religiously inspired resistance movement which agitates against the (neo)colonial, capitalist, imperialist, racist and Eurocentric power structure which they call Babylon. It emerged in Jamaica in the 1930s after the coronation of Haile Selassie as Emperor of Ethiopia, who is seen by many Rastafarians as divine. With their critical perspectives on religion, identity, economics, 'race', racism, politics, culture and other issues, Rastafarians present a significant counter-hegemonic force, not only in the Caribbean but globally. This article is based on original field research, course work and literature study executed in four countries: Barbados, Jamaica, Canada and The Netherlands. Its central question is: 'In what ways does Rastafari, as a counter-hegemonic social movement, present ways of resistance to neoliberal and neo-colonial authoritarianism?' The first part of the article shortly discusses the concepts of hegemony and counter-hegemony, and how these relate to the Rastafari movement. The second part shows how Rastafarians resist authoritarianism, for example through critical reggae music, a focus on self-sufficiency and 'leaving the system', the rejection of a white God and belief in a black God, an Afrocentric identity, dreadlocks, and political action. The research shows how the movement has successfully been able to present a counter-hegemonic narrative for 85 years, despite the strong and at times violent repression by colonial and neo-colonial state actors. It also testifies to the significant positive changes that they have brought into the consciousness of the oppressed masses. Even though the " Babylon system " still exists, the spirit of Rastafari resistance has encouraged people worldwide to stand up against authoritarianism. Their resistance tactics remain applicable in the 21st century, and other liberation movements which fight against capitalism, imperialism, neoliberalism, neo-colonialism, classism, corruption, and racism could learn a great deal from Rastafarians.

In Subculture: The Meaning of Style ([1979] 1988), Dick Hebdige noted that 'somewhere between Trenchtown and Ladbroke Grove the cult of Rastafari had become a " style " : an expressive combination of " locks, " of khaki camouflage and " weed " '. For cultures of resistance such as Rastafari, aesthetic determinants are more than simple visually identifying features. Rather, these elements are the foundation of unity, a shared aesthetic that points to a shared world-view, a shared consciousness or livity. However, in the processes of cultural appropriation, the significance of such aesthetic qualities are often entirely re-determined. This article considers the cultural appropriation of Rastafari in the context of Aotearoa New Zealand in order to reflect upon the intricate ways in which the aesthetic elements of culture play into the processes of appropriation. In so doing, this article illustrates the contradictions and ambiguities involved in processes of cultural appropriation and suggests that such processes be considered in relation to their contextual adoption, rather than by way of simple reductionist binaries.

Signifying individuals as “Rastafari” or “Rasta” without further qualification lacks nuance and precision. The mental images conjured by Rastafari can be in sharp contradiction with the actual practices, beliefs, and behaviors of adherents. Some follow dietary restrictions, some keep knotted locks of hair, and some consume cannabis, while others refrain from these activities. Rastafari also possess differing opinions on repatriation and Haile Selassie’s divinity. The four-point typology articulated in this article (orthodox-isolated, orthodox-integrated, secular-spiritual, secular-cultural) responds to the need to establish a pertinent vocabulary through which the various phenomena associated with Rastafari expression
can be more accurately deciphered while allowing each Rasta authenticity. My results stem from analysis of relevant scholarship in addition to open participant observations, informal focused group interviews, and in-depth interviews I have conducted with Rastafari in Jamaica (2011) and Montréal (2008–2009). This article provides a theoretical
framework for further Rastafari studies.

Taking a broadly historiographical and socio-cultural approach, this article presents the development of Jungle, a unique Black British musical form, through the musical lifecourse of one of Jungle's originators and innovators Michael West aka Congo Natty

This book presents the phenomenon of Afro-Caribbean poetry in English from Jamaican classic dub poetry of the 1970s to (Black) British post-dub verse of the 2000s. It showcases the literary continuum, as represented by Jamaican, Jamaican-British, and ultimately (Black) British writers – Mutabaruka, Michael Smith, Linton Kwesi Johnson, Jean Binta Breeze, Benjamin Zephaniah, and Patience Agbabi, respectively. The work of these authors represents a gradual shift from the emphasis on ethics to the preponderance of aesthetics that include social concerns typical of classic dub poetry.

This presentation offers an overview, with visual content, of the scenographic, symbolic and metaphysical realities which Rastafari have created, often on marginal sites, with found materials, to represent the lost geography of an ancestral Africa

Bob Marley conducted many interviews with different media outlets
in a relatively short period as an international artist. I researched
these interviews and examined their content with regard to categories based on interview format, style, and media representation
(who speaks?). A sample of interviews is considered in detail, including interviews by Neville Willoughby, John Peel, John Tobler, and
David Rodigan, plus key audio and radio resources from Marley
archivist-collector Roger Steffens. Consideration is given to how
these resources exist today online and to what extent they have
been preserved, adapted, edited, and used.

For more than half a century, the African-based Rastafarian movement has existed and thrived. Since the early 1930s, Rastafari has developed, changed and gained enough supporters to be considered “one of the most popular Afro-Caribbean religions of the late twentieth century. According to a survey conducted in 1997, there are over one million practicing Rastafarians worldwide as well as over two million sympathizers. Rastafarians are concentrated in the Caribbean, though members of this diverse movement have settled in significant numbers all throughout the world. At present, there are large Rastafarian communities in New York, Miami, Washington DC, Philadelphia, Chicago, Huston, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Boston and New Haven as well as many large cities in Canada, Europe, South America and Africa. While Rastafari has maintained much of its original flavour, migration, globalization and a reinterpretation of philosophical dogma has created a space for white people to join this typically black movement.

This article is about Leonard Percival Howell, the man who is widely regarded as the founder of the Rastafari movement, which started in Jamaica in 1932. The article focuses on the attempts to suppress Howell during the foundational phase of the Rastafari movement from 1932 to 1954. This was the period in which Howell began preaching the divinity of Haile Selassie I, who was crowned the emperor of Ethiopia in 1930. In 1937, Howell established the friendly organization known as the Ethiopian Salvation Society, and in 1940 started the first Rastafari community in the hills of the parish of St. Catherine, Jamaica. These and his other religio-political activities made Howell the target of one of the longest and most aggressive campaigns to suppress an anticolonial activist during the late colonial period in Jamaica. However, one of the main points of this article is that the attempts to suppress Howell, who was seen by the colonial government as seditious, implicated not just the colonial regime,but also a number of other opponents within the society. This article is an attempt to show that Howell’s suppression was not exclusively a colonial endeavor, but a society-wide campaign to undermine his leadership in order to disband the Rastafari movement. Howell advocated an anticolonialism that was seen as too revolutionary by every participant in the campaign to suppress him and his movement, and particularly aggravating was the notion that a black monarch was the fulfillment of biblical prophecy, and whose ascension signaled the start of black nationalism as a global liberation movement to end white rule over Africans and people of African descent.

Este breve artículo se centra en la llegada de la música reggae a México, dando una rápida reseña de la adopción y posterior adaptación que experimentó este género musical por parte de bandas de reggae mexicanas tempranas.

This short article focuses on the arrival of reggae music to Mexico, giving a brief overview of adoption and subsequent adaptation experienced this genre by early Mexican reggae bands.

Jah Bones è stato tra i fondatori di R.U.Z - Rastafari Universal Zion - un collettivo operante nel Regno Unito alla fine del secolo scorso. Elder di grande carisma e spessore culturale, ha contribuito alla formazione di numerosi Ras, tra i quali Ras Mweya, uno dei promotori del Centenary Commitee che, nel 1996, ha eretto il Tabernacolo di Shashamane.