Rasta and Reggae Music
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Rasta forms the base of reggae music, the vehicle that artists such
as Bob Marley used to spread Rasta thought all over the world. This indigenous
music grew from ska, which had elements of American R&B and Caribbean
styles. It also drew from folk music, Pocomania church music, Jonkanoo
fife and drum bands, fertility rituals, adaptations of quadrilles,
plantation work songs, and a form called mento. Nyahbingi is the purest
form of music played at Rasta meetings or grounations. It uses three hand
drums of different sizes, the bass, the funde and the repeater. (An archetypal
example of nyahbingi is the three LP set from Count Ossie and the Mystic
Revelation of Rastafari.) "Roots" reggae explores the themes of the suffering
of ghetto dwellers, slavery in Babylon, Haile Selassie as a living deity,
and the hoped-for return to Africa.
After Jamaica's independence in 1962, the lack of political improvement
and the Black Power movement in the U.S. led to a big Rasta resurgence.
In 1964 the body of Marcus Garvey was returned from England for reburial
in his homeland. In mid-60s reggae evolved a slower and cooler mode called
rocksteady which shifted emphasis to bass and drums. In the late Sixties,
Haile Selassie visited the island. Peter Tosh's "Rasta Shook Them Up" commemorated
this major event. The fact that the emperor presented him with a walking
stick, helped Michael Manley get elected. Manley's term in office started
with wide support from Rasta musicians, though his leadership later brought disillusionment. "He
Who Feels It Knows It" was one of the first recordings to use the phrase
"I & I," which expresses unity between man and God. Ras Michael and
the Sons of Negus rec orded such forthright Rasta statements as "Ethiopian
National Anthem."
In 1969, Burning Spear's debut album included the exhortation to "Chant
Down Babylon". From other artists in the early Seventies came such songs
as "Conquering Lion," "Deliver Us," "Rasta Never Fails," and "Africa is
Paradise." By 1975, Rastafarian chants were increasingly heard on records
and the Wailers were in dreadlocks. With the albums and , Bob Marley became
Jamaica's first international superstar. With a population of only two
million, the island nation has sent into the world more than 100,000 reggae
records over four decades.
Although we live in the midst of spiritual strife, even seemingly in
the times described in the book of Revelations, Rasta is not about converting
people. Although based on the Ethiopian Orthodox church, Rasta is not a
church with an official doctrine, but a belief system that concerns spiritual
social and historical matters. Some Rastafarians cut their hair and don't
use ganga. Beliefs may include not eating salt, or things that grow under
the earth or that need to be killed. Some Rasta followers won't sleep in
a house. Adherents of Ites culture find the Almighty within all men, not
Haile Selassie in particular. The Bobo dread wears his locks in a turban and carries a broom to signify his own cleanliness. There are Rasta women,
but you don't see them around so much because they are very home and family-centered.
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