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)