{"id":12623,"date":"2018-06-29T23:59:42","date_gmt":"2018-06-29T23:59:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/?p=12623"},"modified":"2018-06-29T23:59:42","modified_gmt":"2018-06-29T23:59:42","slug":"reggaes-sacred-roots-and-call-to-protest-injustice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/reggaes-sacred-roots-and-call-to-protest-injustice\/","title":{"rendered":"Reggae’s sacred roots and call to protest injustice"},"content":{"rendered":"

David W. Stowe<\/a>, Michigan State University<\/a><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

July 1 is International Reggae Day<\/a> \u2013 a time to celebrate the popular music of Jamaica with dance parties<\/a> exhibitions, presentations and even tree planting.<\/p>\n

Reggae is universally associated with Bob Marley, its most influential artist. However, it was \u201cDo the Reggae,\u201d<\/a> by Jamaican musical group Toots and the Maytals that in 1968 first used the word \u201creggae\u201d in a title and helped define the genre. Two years later, another Jamaican band, the Melodians released \u201cRivers of Babylon,\u201d with lyrics adopted from Psalm 137, a Hebrew poem that is the subject of my most recent book, \u201cSong of Exile.\u201d<\/a>.<\/p>\n

This hugely popular lyric opens a window into Rastafarian spirituality.<\/p>\n

Who are the Rastafari<\/h2>\n

Reggae is the most popular musical expression of Rastafari<\/a>, 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. <\/p>\n

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<\/a> in 1914. He taught that blacks should reject their subjugation in North America by repatriating to Africa. <\/p>\n

Garvey preached that blacks were the authentic biblical Jews. Based on his reading of the Bible, Garvey predicted<\/a> 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. <\/p>\n

\n \"\"
\n A mural depicting reggae music icon Bob Marley, right, and former Ethiopia\u2019s Emperor Haile Selassie decorate a wall in the yard of Marley\u2019s Kingston home, in Jamaica.<\/span>
\n AP Photo\/ David McFadden<\/span><\/span>
\n <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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 \u201cRas,\u201d meaning \u201cprince,\u201d and his given name was Tafari \u2013 hence his followers called themselves Rastafari<\/a>. <\/p>\n

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<\/a>, in which the leaves of trees serve for the \u201chealing of the nations,\u201d Rastafari prescribes cannabis use in sacramental rituals for healing and meditation that center on drumming and chanting. <\/p>\n

Reggae and \u2018Rivers of Babylon\u2019<\/h2>\n

Reggae music was fed by diverse musical sources. Its rhythmic underpinnings were laid by African drum rhythms<\/a>. Syncopated patterns created by the drums were enhanced in the 1960s by a prominent electric bass line and off-beat guitar riffs. <\/p>\n

Reggae also drew on earlier traditions of Jamaican popular music as well as American genres like big-band jazz and rhythm and blues. North American gospel hymns influenced some of the lyrics and tunes. <\/p>\n

The spirituality of Rastafari appears vividly in the song \u201cRivers of Babylon.\u201d <\/p>\n

First recorded in 1970, \u201cRivers of Babylon\u201d takes its text from Psalm 137, the only one out of 150 psalms to be set in a particular time and place, the Babylonian exile or the period between 587-586 B.C. in Israel\u2019s history<\/a>, when Jews were taken captive in Babylon and the Jerusalem temple was destroyed.<\/p>\n

Its nine verses paint a scene of captives mourning \u201cby the rivers of Babylon,\u201d mocked by their captors. It expresses a vow to remember Jerusalem even in exile and closes with fantasies of vengeance against the oppressors.<\/p>\n

Why Psalm 137 is important<\/h2>\n

The Babylonian exile compelled Israelites to rethink their relationship to God, reassess their standing as a chosen people and rewrite their history. This episode has obvious appeal to Rastafarians<\/a>, who consider themselves in exile from their African homeland (Zion) and living under an oppressive European power system they refer to as Babylon.<\/p>\n

Like Psalm 137, the \u201cRivers of Babylon,\u201d is divided into three sections. <\/p>\n

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