Reggae's sacred roots and call to protest injustice

NEW YORK - Oct. 5, 2023 - PRLog -- By: David W. Stowe, Michigan State University

The Conversation Media Company {CCA}

July 1 is International Reggae Day – a time to celebrate the popular music of Jamaica with dance parties exhibitions, presentations and even tree planting.

Reggae is universally associated with Bob Marley, its most influential artist. However, it was "Do the Reggae," by Jamaican musical group Toots and the Maytals that in 1968 first used the word "reggae" in a title and helped define the genre. Two years later, another Jamaican band, the Melodians released "Rivers of Babylon," with lyrics adopted from Psalm 137, a Hebrew poem that is the subject of my most recent book, "Song of Exile.".

This hugely popular lyric opens a window into Rastafarian spirituality.

Who are the Rastafari?

Reggae is the most popular musical expression of Rastafari, a belief system that took hold in the 1930s among poor, rural Jamaicans of African descent, who had immigrated to Kingston, where they felt alienated from roots and traditions.

Rastafari emphasizes the connection of people of African descent to Ethiopia and was inspired principally by the Jamaican-born Marcus Garvey, who founded the influential United Negro Improvement Association in 1914. He taught that blacks should reject their subjugation in North America by repatriating to Africa.

Garvey preached that blacks were the authentic biblical Jews. Based on his reading of the Bible, Garvey predicted the appearance of a black king and messiah in Africa. Like Jews, Christians and Muslims, Rastas worship a supreme being, referred to as Jah, short for Jehovah.

The word Rastafari comes from the Emperor of Ethiopia Haile Selassie, crowned in 1930 and considered by most Rastafarians to be divine. Although Selassie himself was Christian not Rasta, his title was "Ras," meaning "prince," and his given name was Tafari – hence his followers called themselves Rastafari.

Numbering roughly a million adherents worldwide, Rastafari forbids practitioners to cut their hair. A meat-free diet of local, naturally produced fruits and vegetables without additives is encouraged, contraception and abortion are typically proscribed, and homosexuality is shunned. Taking its cue from verses in the Bible, in which the leaves of trees serve for the "healing of the nations," Rastafari prescribes cannabis use in sacramental rituals for healing and meditation that center on drumming and chanting.

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