I’m sitting here listening to some Bob Marley
and I started to think about what Reggae is about. It basically originated as religious music, or the main musical vehicle of Rastafarian beliefs. What is so funny to me is that the Rastas believe that the Caribbean is Hell. They identify with the ancient Israelites in that they’ve been in slavery for four hundred years. After physical slavery was abolished, they were kept in mental slavery. They also look to Ethiopia as Zion, or Heaven. The rest of the world looks at the Caribbean as Paradise, and at Ethiopia as a barren land of famine.
If you’re interested in the Rastafarians, Wikipedia is a good place to start
Reggae was born out of the ghettos of Kingston, Jamaica, in a place called Trenchtown. That’s where Bob Marley’s album ‘Trenchtown Rock‘ comes from. A great resource for Bob Marley is No Woman No Cry: My Life with Bob Marley by his wife, Rita Marley.
Posted on May 30, 2007 - Filed Under Jamaica, Beaches, and the Caribbean, Jamaican News, Music
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