Rastafari Today

It has been almost three decades since Bob Marley left us a catalog of music that continues to inspire a rebellious sub-culture among white North American college kids more than it educates Caribbean nationals about the struggles of our ancestors through to the present time.

Marley’s music made plain the intricacies of poverty, ‘mental slavery’, colonialism, oppressive civil society, relationships and Rastafari – themes that are alive and well in the Caribbean and in need of much discourse. Yet, from Port-of-Spain to Montego Bay, his image is relegated to t-shirts, mugs and assorted trinkets. The only value Marley seem to present to his homeland is his ability to draw tourists to the island in search of things the government have been slow to celebrate – marijuana and a Rastafarian lifestyle still marginalized on the island today. Record sales and airplay of Marley’s music in Jamaica is anemic in comparisson to some European countries. Still, most Jamaicans believe that Bob Marley is “the greatest” musician to come out of the island – why? Because that is what we have been told by the people we think know best; the foreigners.

The Jamaican elite from press to politician were (and still are) always the last to celebrate our organic culture and inventiveness. They had low regard for Marley, his spirituality and the circumstances that inspired his music. It was not until Europe in the form of Chris Blackwell and others showed interest that the government and people began to take note of Marley’s BMW and his success. But what of the other Jamaican musicians who were not anointed by Europe and North America to achieve Marley’s commercial success? Marley may very well deserve the title “the greatest” but we must admit that he got that title from the outside world, and not because we have self-examined our own musical heritage and found that to be true.

Commercializing Marley has served us well. While the benefits of Marley’s image continue to pay dividends to his family and the Caribbean tourist product, it has also served to stifle the regard for Jamaican musicians who missed the opportunity to capitalize the novelty of our culture as Marley and Chris Blackwell did. At the launch of his latest artistic effort “Rasta Got Soul” at the University of the West Indies Mona campus, Jamaican artiste Buju Banton lamented, “…you know they say that the greatest musician in Jamaica is Bob Marley. I don’t believe that, because we have greater musicians to come. Bob was the most promoted and well promoted and we have to appreciate that because it’s our culture, but… I want Jamaican music to be seen not through the pretext of some man that died 20 years ago, but as a pretext of a living being, working earnestly.”

Many criticized Buju Banton’s remarks and accused him of envying Marley’s title—but in doing so they missed a pertinent question; have we evolved to a place from which we are able to identify, acknowledge and celebrate our own greatness without prior external validation? And if so, where are our new greats?

The post-colonial attitude of waiting for cultural validation from the ‘mother country’ is fast disappearing among the next generation of Caribbean nationals. Unlike most of us, the youth have their own “greatest” and you won’t find most of them associated with tourist trinkets. If we act now to celebrate the many great unsung artists and art forms in the Caribbean today – and from yesteryear, we might still have the opportunity to teach our youth that commercial success does not equal greatness.
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by Suzette Gardner