Music and social movement: Reggae

Résumé du document

Reggae music is an engaged musical genre. It is very famous and at the same time not so well-known. Most of the people think of Reggae music as music of joy, peace and linked to Jamaica, the sunny island where everyone smokes herb freely. But in fact, we will see that Reggae inscribes itself in a whole social movement. First, it claims religious and social demands, and with the years, it became more and more politicized. We shall first examine the origins of Reggae music, where such a genre takes its roots and how it emerged and progressed to be so famous around the world. Then, we will study the main religious messages it gives, through the different singers who are mainly Rastafarians. But Reggae music is still very present nowadays, and through the cliches, we will see how this genre can still be engaged and what its demands are in the 21st century. Reggae music originated in Jamaica in the early 60's. In the streets and ghettos of Kingston, shortly after independence from Britain in 1962, reggae started to evolve from Mento, which was a local form of Jamaican music in the 30's to what it has become today.

Extraits

[...] He considered that . ] if Europe is for Europeans, then Africa is for the black people of the world." After spending nearly a decade in the United States and Great Britain, Garvey returned to Jamaica in 1927, where he spread his political views among the black working class. He told Black people to "look to Africa for the crowning of a king to know that your redemption is near."11 In 1930, Prince Ras Tafari Makonnen was crowned the new Emperor of Ethiopia. [...]

[...] Not only did no Jamaica-wide Rastafarian Church develop, but there was not even agreement on basic doctrine or a canon of scripture. Haile Selassie visited Jamaica on April while the country was amid an ongoing national social crisis in which Rastas were perceived by the majority as a revolutionary threat that had to be defused. During this first and final trip to Jamaica, Selassie met with several Rastafarian leaders. The visit resulted in two profound developments within the Rastafarian movement. [...]

[...] Marley, Tosh, Wailer and later J.Braithwaite and B. Kelson created the reggae group Wailers”, and worked during summer, for tourists. They strongly identified to the arrogant and rebellious Jamaican youth. A producer, C. Dodd, gives them an access to a studio, but Marley had to go to the USA in 1966 to work in a factory, and came back in Jamaica to avoid the military service. The reggae group was formed again and recorded discs under the Coxsone-Studio One label, and then created their own label, Waillin'Sound followed by Tuff Gong. [...]

[...] Manley's adversary, Seaga is a representant of the MFI in Jamaica and personal friend with Reagan. He becomes First Minister and Rastas call him After a short time of improvement, Jamaica is in crisis again, because of the international debt which absorbs more than 64% of the budget in 2003-2004 (only for education and for health services). Debt became perpetual. Nowadays, reggae music is still engaged, for this cause: it denunciates the situation of Jamaica. A CD and a documentary (by S. [...]

[...] During this concert, someone tried to assassinate Marley. In 1968, a peace concert is organized to gather the partisans of both parties, JLP and PLP; among the artists present there, there was B. Marley and the Wailers. Manley and the head of opposition, Edward Seagga were also there. Only Peter Tosh didn't seem to agree with the idea of a truce, claiming that it was not a peaceful time. Marley's sons took a politically more engaged tone. He visited Ethiopia which confirmed his political and religious ideas. [...]