biography and background What is Reggae? His Songs & Lyrics For Course Discussion:    Relevant Links:  General Culture and Religion: the Caribbean Area Further Studies  General issues:

• "Caribbean Basin Initative"-- the Reagan Administration's Caribbean Basin Initative linked to neo-colonialism and the collapse of the Jamaican economy in the 1980s.  "The entire CBI campaign had been a bribe to induce Jamaica and the rest of the Caribbean to accredit the armed confrontation in Grenada.  It also provided a cover for $75 million in additional combat funding for the war in El Salvador."
• The Rise of Rastafari in Jamaica--The roots, core beliefs and practices of Rastafari lie close to Bob Marley's music and philosophy. This section puts the religion in context and dispels popular misconceptions about the philosophy and lifestyle of devout Rastas.

Reggae is a music unique to Jamiaca, but it ironically has its roots in New Orleans R&B. Reggae's
direct forefather is ska, an uptempo, rhythmic variation based on the New Orleans R&B Jamaican
 musicians heard broadcast from the US on their transistor radios. Relying on skittering guitar and
 syncopated rhythms, ska was their interpretation of R&B and it was quite popular in the early '60s.
 However, during one very hot summer, it was too hot to either play or dance to ska, so the beat
 was slowed down and reggae was born.

Since then, reggae has proven to be as versatile as the  blues, as it lends itself to a number of interpretations, from the melodic rock steady of Alton Ellis  and the rock and folk-influenced songwriting of Bob Marley to the trippy, near-psychedelic soundscapes of dub artists like Lee "Scratch" Perry. It has crossed into the mainstream through the
 bright, bouncy "reggae sunsplash" festivals and pop-oriented bands like UB40, but more  adventurous reggae artists, such as Marley and Perry, have influenced countless reggae, folk, rock  and dance artists. Their contributions resonate throughout popular music.

     "As far as Jamaican record-buyers are concerned, the word reggae was coined on a 1968
     Pyramid dance single, "Do the Reggay (sic)," by Toots and the Maytals. Some believe the
     term is derived from Regga, the name of a Bantu-speaking tribe on Lake Tanganyika. Others
     say it is a corruption of "streggae," Kingston street slang for prostitute.

     Bob Marley claimed the word was Spanish in origin, meaning "the king's music." Veteran
     Jamaican studio musicians offer the simplest, and probably the most plausible, explanation.
     "It's a description of the beat itself," says Hux Brown, lead guitarist on Paul Simon's 1972
     reggae-flavored hit, "Mother and Child Reunion," and the man widely credited with inventing
     the one-string quiver/trill that kicked off Simon's single as well as many of the top island hits of
     the preceeding years.

          "It's just a fun, joke kinda word that means the ragged rhythm and the body feelin'. If
          it's got a greater meanin', it doesn't matter," Brown said.

Songs and Lyrics:

• Redemption Song (the song)  from Legend--Like all great folk anthems of liberation, it's rich with the flinty energy of enduring against awesome and terrible odds.
• Get Up Stand Up
•  No Woman No Cry  (the song)

 
• One Love , People Get Ready from Legend

 
• I Shot the Sheriff  (the song)  from Legend-The song provided Eric Clapton with a number one hit in America.
• Buffalo Soldier  from Legend-A gritty ballad that tells the cruelly ironic story of black men being conscripted into the ranks of the Union Army to kill indians.

 
• Africa Unite from Natural Mystic
• War from Natural Mystic

• Bob Marley site
• The assassination attempt:  the political machinations behind the assassination attempt days before the PNP-sponsored "Smile Jamaica" concert in December 1978.
• Hippies & Rastas in Jamaica: "It was not until well-to-do, hardcore hippie vagabonds who had survived in the late 1960s began to make their way to ready-made paradises like Maui, St. Martin, St. Bart's and other tropical islands in the early 1970s that they discovered Jamaica. There seemed to be a superficial affinity between rich hippies and Rastas, the former having inherited the means to turn their backs on much of society, the latter having

 inherited the conviction. The Rastaman knew he had no choice; the hippies, full of  themselves, said the same thing as they sat  half-naked on the patio at Rick's Cafe and sipped rum punch."
• Rastafari page from Bob Marley site.

The Art of Confrontation: The Image of Papacy as Slain Satan--a critique of  the Vatican-related scandals in the 80's On the cover of Confrontation, Bob Marley was depicted as an Ethiopian horseman (complete with the traditional thong stirrup, a reference by art director Neville Garrick to the deadly cancer that began in Marley's toe) who's been transformed into St. George slaying the dragon.

• The Story of Jamaican music--"In Jamaica, where technical resources are scarce,  everything is recycled continually. So it was with rhythms: the backing tracks for songs could serve equally well as backing for instrumentals, or deejay raps, and then be dubbed again. It occured to Bunny that a whole LP could be made using just one rhythm."

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