An herbal meditation with Bob Marley

Kunapipi, Dec 1980

The Jamaican reggae beat has had a major impact on global popular music during the last fifteen years and carried along on that lurching, jerking rhythm is the message of the oppressed black masses of Jamaica which has touched the hearts and minds of millions of blacks and whites worldwide.

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An herbal meditation with Bob Marley

An herbal meditation with Bob Marley Albert L Jones 0 Recommended Citation 0 Jones , Albert L, An herbal meditation with Bob Marley, Kunapipi, 2(2), 1980. Available at: - Abstract The J amaican reggae beat has had a major impact on global popular music during the last fifteen years and carried along on that lurching, jerking rhythm is the message of the oppressed black masses of Jamaica which has touched the hearts and minds of millions of blacks and whites worldwide. Thi s journal article is available in Kunapipi: http://ro.uow.edu.au/kunapipi/vol2/iss2/17 ALBERT L. JONES An Herbal Meditation with Bob Marley muzik of blood black reared pain rooted heart geared; all tensed up in the bubble an the bounce an the leap an the weight-drop. it is the beat of the heart, this pulsing of blood that is a bubbling bass, a bad bad beat pushin against the wall whey bar black blood. an is a whole heappa passion a gather like a frightful form like a righteous harm giving off wild like is madness. Linton Kwesijohnson 1 The Jamaican reggae beat has had a major impact on global popular music during the last fifteen years and carried along on that lurching, jerking rhythm is the message of the oppressed black masses of Jamaica which has touched the hearts and minds of millions of blacks and whites worldwide. The significance of reggae in Jamaica extends beyond its importance as an export commodity. Reggae music has had a galvanizing effect on the poor and illiterate in the ghettoes of Kingston. The Rastafarian millennia! cult has effectively utilized reggae in the propagation of their message of black awareness, faith in Emperor Haille Selassie of Ethiopia (christened Ras Tafari) as the Second Coming of Christ, and the prospect of repatriation to Africa. In Jamaican politics reggae songs carry incalculable clout. After ten years of rule by the conservative Jamaican Labour Party, led, curiously enough, by former record producer Edward Seaga, Michael Manley's democratic socialist People's National Party turned the tables in 1972 on the strength of Manley's association with the Rastafarian movement and through the popularity of two reggae singles, Max Romeo's 'Let the Power Fall' and Delroy Wilson's 'Better Must Come'. For the I 976 election Wilson recorded 'Heavy Manners' and Manley enlisted the aid of Bob Marley and the Wailers who boosted the PNP with a suitably optimistic single, 'Smile Jamaica' and a live appearance at a mass rally and free concert. In a brutal climax to the election campaign conducted during a prolonged state of emergency, Marley's Island House on Hope Road was attacked three days before the concert by machine­ gun toting hoods who put two bulle\S in Marley and five in his manager. The concert went on as scheduled, Manley increased his parliamentary majority, and Marley went into a voluntary exile which lasted until early 1979. Bob Marley has almost single-handedly made reggae a force to be reckoned with in world music. And contact with reggae has heightened the consciousness of blacks and whites alike who would otherwise never have been able to find Jamaica on the map. Marley is widely regarded as a Third World revolutionary artist with a no-compromise stance, although this view is not easily reconciled with the arcane dogma of the Rasta faith. While it is true that Rasta discards the pie-in-the-sky promise with which Christianity has traditionally placated the classes in a society which were denied power, wealth, security, opportunity and position in this life, We're sick and tired of your ism-schism game to die and go to heaven in Jesus' name. 2 it is also true that Rastafarians refuse to mobilize their considerable forces in any concrete political endeavour, claiming that politics and the affairs of the material world are beneath contempt, 'I am in this world, but I am not of this world', as Bob Marley put it when I spoke to him. But Rasta doctrine and reggae songs are also shot through with pacifying 'God will provide' and 'Keep the faith and humble yourself sentiments which are a crippling residue of the Old Testament teachings which form the basis of Rastafarianism. In Marley's powerful song about the failed assassination attempt he sees the assault as politically motivated, yet his reaction is essentially a religious one. See them fighting for power But they know not the hour So they bribing with Their guns, spare-parts and money, Trying to belittle our integrity. They say what we know Is just what they teach us; We're so ignorant, Every time they can reach us. Through political strategy They keep us hungry. When you gotta get some food Your brother got to be your enemy. Ambush in the night All guns aiming at me Ambush in the night They opened fire on me Ambush in the night Protected by His Majesty Well, what we know Is not what they tell us. We're not ignorant, I mean it And they just could not touch us. Through the powers of the Most High We keep on surfacing. Through the pow (...truncated)


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Albert L Jones. An herbal meditation with Bob Marley, Kunapipi, 1980, Volume 2, Issue 2,