Today Marley’s music is more popular than when he was with us in the flesh. Careful marketing is responsible for presenting Marley’s image to a new generation that was bound to find him because the struggle for equality and the search for songs of freedom are still relevant and pressing globally. In North America and Europe where Marley’s music is sold the most, his image is synonymous with weed (marijuana) smoking and being high – why is that? Michelle A. Stephens, PhD explained in her essay “Babylon’s ‘Natural Mystic’: The North American Music Industry, The Legend of Bob Marley, and the Incorporation of Transnationalism.”

Bob Marley’s significance as a popular cultural icon, both during his initial emergence in North America in the 1970s and after his death in 1981, has been a constantly evolving phenomenon. As American society and culture has adapted to the presence of new, racialized, West Indian immigrants, so too has Marley’s legend been adapted to fit the changing moods of the past three decades… From the Rastafarian outlaw of the 1970s through the natural family man of the 1980s to the natural mystic in the 1990s, Marley has represented ideologies of national liberation and black power, multiculturalism, universal pluralism and, most recently, transnationalism… the construction of Marley as the ‘natural mystic’ reflects the growth of the multinational corporation and mass media industries in this era of postmodernism and late capitalism.

Hear more from Dr. Stephens in this discussion with Dr. Jared Ball (voxunion.com) and Suzette Gardner (rastafaritoday.com) about the media’s evolution of Bob Marley’s image.

PART I – Download

PART II – Download

Upfull Marley Day to all!

Stephen Marley

The Grammy Awards have come under criticism over the past years for focusing solely on reggae artist with mass cross-over appeal. The name Marley undoubtedly has that appeal – Marley and his children have won the award several times; in 1999 Bob Marley & The Wailers were first inducted to the Grammy Awards Hall of Fame for Get Up, Stand Up. Several of Marley’s other works have since received the honor with Catch a Fire being the most recent.

Ziggy Marley’s solo venture into the world of children’s music also claimed the award for Best Musical Album for Children.

Congrats to all the nominees – and especially to Stephen & Ziggy Marley for representing Rastafari and Jamaican culture with upfullness.

For years Mahama Bawa ran “Kobos”, an African clothes store in the Adams Morgan neighborhood of Washington D.C. Kobos was more than just a store where patrons could get fine formal and casual wear imported directly from Africa, it was a place for progressive exchange of ideas and dialogue between the Diaspora of Africans.

rastafaritoday.com: So, you spoke about working for Africa in small ways, how are you working for the American community?

African Diaspora Dialogue

Yaya Bawa: The whole concept of this shop was motivated by what I saw was a void in the early 80s, I used to hear people talk about African Americans not identifying themselves in terms of their heritage… this whole criticism of people not wanting to be African in the materialistic manifestation of it which I think is very important-that Africans should manifest who they are in the materialistic sense. So, I kept asking myself, how can people manifest their culture if they have no institution or resources? Later, the opportunity came for something like this to be done, and we went ahead and established this (shop). The primary force behind this (shop) is not just to sell clothes, but also to give people an opportunity to see what Africa can do for itself and give people a place where they can come and feel comfortable. This is their own space, they don’t have to apologies for how they walk in, they don’t have someone looking over their back… they can ask questions about their culture, ask questions, seek information, seek direction, ask questions about Africa. My focus has really been on the African-American community and the Caribbean community, to give them an opportunity, a window to Africa using clothing…

I always say, Africa is like a castle, it has many doors and windows, music, food, clothes, religion, philosophy. All of these can be a window for a woman’s entry into Africa. A woman can be a man’s entry to Africa.

If there is one story that typifies our mission, this is the story; we have people who have actually relocated to Ghana who started with us with one article of clothing-and now they have retired, living in Ghana.

And it comes from a deep understanding that all African people are cousins. I am not interested in whether you say you are Jamaican, Barbadian, from Brazil, from Chicago; those are accidents in terms of place of birth. We are African people. We start from that premise. Now if you believe in protecting and defending the interest of Africa, we can sit at the table and eat with us. If you decide that you are not going to defending and protecting the interest of Africa, then we are not going to share our bread with you. But you are still a part of the family; it is just that we will not let you guard the south gate. (laughs) Now what matters is what are you doing about your African-ness, and if you are interested in that, you can come and break bread.

rastafaritoday.com: What do you think Africa is for the rest of the world?
Yaya Bawa: Well, there are two things, there is what Africa is for the rest of the world, and there is what the world thinks Africa is. Africa is their mother, for everybody! This is the mother of all nations, like it or not, we are all Africans. Unfortunately, because of the history of people and conquest, Europe in particular, has not been able to fully play her role as part of the African human family. But I believe that eventually, this too will change. There was a time when this was not the case I always remind people that this neglect and disrespect for Africa is something created in the last few hundred years. Prior to that, Africa was at the center of human civilization, she gave birth to new civilizations, she gave birth to ideas she nurtured other civilizations, they came in and participated in her experiments, they went away and did some new things, Africa looked at her children doing new things and she borrowed ideas from those children also. This is what has happened until the colonial experiment, when Europe began not only to colonize the people and their resources but also to colonize their ideas and information and to come up with this notion of inferiority and superiority to which Africa has been subjected to.

The way I see it now is for Africans themselves, to understand this process, to see what has happened to them and to understand that in the process of colonization, their mind has been deeply affected. And therefore their appreciation of their own selves and values has been seriously depreciated. And if they are able to understand that, then they have to come up with a counter strategy of elevating themselves back to their former sense of worth and glory. When they are able to that for themselves, then Europe and all the other parts of the world will have to look at a new reality of African people who accept themselves, African people who do things for themselves who create new ideas for themselves.

For example there is no reason the concept of development should remain singly at the level of European definition of production and distribution-there is no reason why that should be the only formula. Especially when you realize that prior to the development of capitalism in Europe, there were other forms of production that people lived with-and had new ideas. This was only one stage in the development of man, which happened to coincide with the development of Europe. What Africa has to do is to come up with their own definition of the best forms of production and distribution of resources. And live it and if they are able to do that and redefine themselves, and bring up their values to their contemporary lives, they don’t have to ask for anyone’s respect. But as long as African elites play second fiddle, and imitate European concepts and ideals, then Europeans have no reason to respect you… see anytime you imitate somebody, you are naturally second. So it’s time for us as African people to just say to ourselves that we have so much in terms of material and human resources to be able to create our new institutions, to reach back and to embrace the African world view, to bring out principles, processes and ideas that can be alive today and give them their contemporary flavor and superstructure and to make them work for our people. And once we are able to do that, then we can feed ourselves, clothe ourselves and we can look at each other, admire each other and stop killing each other because now we feel better about each other!

Like crabs in a bucket, each one wants to get out and as a result we are pulling each other we and destroying each other because we want to be who we are not, and as long as you are trying to be who you are not, then your soul is not at rest. And a soul that is not at rest is a violent soul and it can wreak havoc in its environment. So when you see what is going on in the continent, you have to understand, these are disturbed souls. These are not normal people! And until you bring their normalcy back, by letting people remain in their reality–there is an African reality, just as there is a Japanese, Indian, European reality. If you take people out of their reality and impose upon them something alien, you create a monster. You distort the person.

This is not to say for example that an African cannot look at China, Japan and see beauty in some things and then and then re-enforce his own with that beauty. For example, I know Europeans who have big homes and have an African Art and some things… that’s sharing in the human experience. But that does not denying this man his heritage, he lives as a European. He just flirts with Africa when he needs to and he can even go and have an African meal when he wants to. His whole life is not centered around Africa. The African should be able to do that; Live as an African, and if there is something he wants to experience which is Asian or Europe, then he can do that. But he cannot remain there. Because if he remains there then the crisis begin, and that is what Fanon was dealing with, the alienation of the black man. When the black man is constantly in crisis, especially the educated African, he doesn’t really know who he really is. He is born an African but he is being raised with European ways. He can never become a European and yet he is loosing his African heritage. What you have there is a crisis. Now if it is this class that we are drawing our leadership from, imagine what you have?

rastafaritoday.com: That is the class from which we are drawing our leadership.
Yaya Bawa: Exactly! Educated in ways that are alien to their own.

rastafaritoday.com: Educated to imitate.
Yaya Bawa: Yes!

Mahama Bawa has since closed Kobos now lives in Ghana where he tends to his farm.

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.
—

by Suzette Gardner

Rita came under heavy criticism from the Rastafarian community—most outspoken of which was Bunny Wailer, former member of the now world famous trio The Wailers. In an interview with the Jamaica Observer, the ex-wailer demanded that Rita apologize for her damage to Bob Marley’s image saying Mrs. Marley’s revelation “…is a disrespect and she owes the world, Bob Marley and their children and grandchildren, an apology… at a time when he is being treated as a saint – this individual who the world is now seeing as an icon, a prophet and a spiritual leader, because of the legacy that he has left us and the legacy that he has left her.” Regardless of how ludicrous it is to ask Mrs. Marley to sacrifice her own healing in favor of the deceased star’s image, few rose to defend her although sales of the book soared with the disclosure hitting the press worldwide.

Bunny’s demand for Rita’s apology cannot be exclusively attributed to Rastafarianism. It is still common in Caribbean society for women to protect the male’s ego through silence—even in cases of sexual violence; a detrimental byproduct of a sexist society. According to Caribbean Sociologist Dr. Linden Lewis, the continuing trend of Caribbean women excelling and assuming positions of power in their society is giving rise to “a growing backlash over what has been described as the marginalization of men.”

“…the status of women’” he said, “changes in tandem with deteriorating economic conditions, there has been a corresponding rise in traditional tensions between men and women, and in some cases, some men believe that the progress of women is being made at the expense of men. The changing gender dynamics of the region present new challenges which have to be negotiated.”

“Violence against women is part of a wider problem of violence in the society as a whole. There is considerably violence that takes place among men themselves and that also needs to be addressed. The violence against women is of a particular quality because it involves people of different strengths, who stand in different relations to power, and who have different types of institutional mechanisms of support and protection, but more importantly, this violence participates in a general pattern of abuse of women which is verbal, emotional and physical.” Lewis further cautions that, “The region has an urgent challenge to fix this problem because every major report on the Caribbean has indicated an increase in the violence against women and this is an unacceptable state of affairs.”

Perhaps Bob Marley was as much a victim of his society as he was its savior; in his paper “Gender Tension and Change in the Contemporary Caribbean” Lewis affirms that “It is reasonable to argue that in the Caribbean as a whole, sexual harassment represents behavior which is largely normalized. The patriarchal culture of the region nurtures this type of behavior.”

In her book, Rita Marley’s rag to riches story tracks the couple’s tumultuous relationship fraught with marital infidelity and emotional hard times. Although many credit his widow’s current fame and fortune to the legacy of Bob Marley, her book attributes her success to her resourcefulness, independence, talent and faith.

The documentary dealt with a variety of issues Rasta women face, from polygamy, contraception and diet, to spiritual denomination. However, the most jarring voice was that of the only male featured in the film, Fitz Elliott. This brother, seemingly a Rasta elder, highlighted the great divide that exists in some Rastafarian communities between male and female. In his sexist rhetoric, he referred to his belief in the Christian outlook on the woman as being inferior and the source of sin. Although the sisters in the film countered his argument, the problem of sexist double standards and the demonizing of the woman are still prominent in some Rastafarian communities.

Time for Rasta women’s rights
How can a powerful movement advocating for equal rights and justice for all humanity not stand for the same principles between the sexes in the movement? The answer lies in historical brainwashing, which has many feeling their spirituality as Rastas stems from the Judeo-Christian religion that also advocates for female inferiority. While many have the general concepts about ‘truths and rights’ correct, applying them seems to be a difficult task. ‘Truths and rights’ between the sexes and within a spiritual context involves challenging the many falsehoods Africans in the Diaspora have to struggle psychologically to overcome as they journey towards reconstructing their consciousness.

But, the struggle for Rasta women’s equality within the movement and elsewhere cannot wait for the maturation of collective consciousness. Sisters must at least use the tools of basic organizing to combat and change their negative status within the lifestyle. After all, the Nyabinghi order takes its name and philosophies from the African Queen Nyabinghi who contributed positively to African spirituality and resistance as an equal member of her society.

Education, information and dialogue are some of the tools the Rasta woman must employ in order to be liberated within her own group. Whereas misguided theology stands in the way of the Rasta woman’s liberation, she must get involved in these discussions to combat the male chauvinistic tendencies of organized religion. Bonding with other sisters within Rastafarian movement and becoming active in other women’s groups can also provide some insightful ideas on combating sexism within the spirituality and in our society in general.

Legacy of slavery and sexism
Black women are well aware of how damaged and disadvantaged our brothers were made by slavery and colonization of the mind, body and spirit. While Rastafarianism has been a guiding light and strength in reviving our brothers to true manhood and equal world citizenship, we must not allow him to suppress the simultaneous revival of his sister so that he may seem to stand taller. His struggle should not be so that he may stand taller than his sister-or even his oppressors, but that he should be of equal value as a part of creation. We must encourage our brethren and teach our youth to reject the idea that in order for one to rise, others must fall. Why should we struggle to depose oppressive ideologies and institutions only to replace them with equally oppressive ones that are more like us? Whether it has an African name or a “Babylonian” name or it is wearing a dashiki, agbada or suit and tie, injustice is injustice and it deserves a fierce fight from the oppressed until it is eliminated. Sexism within Rastafarian spirituality is an injustice to our collective struggle as a people.

It is true that ‘the hand that rocks the cradle, rules the world’ and as such, it is up to Rasta women to demand the love and respect they deserve as female human beings especially within Rastafarianism, where every muscle is essential for the movement and survival of the group. If the woman is seen as inferior within the Rastafarian movement by anyone, then everyone within the movement regardless of how “conscious” they feel themselves to be is not truly liberated from mental slavery.

Sheila Walker, PhD:

How [could] the Europeans construct the Americas without African labor? It’s just not true… we are led to believe that the trans-Atlantic slave trade was an involuntary migration of unskilled labor, well that’s not true either. If you are about to build a whole continent-I mean “rebuild” because somebody had already built it, you are not going to recruit people based on their lack of knowledge, you want people who have the kinds of skill and expertise you need to create this new society. So you kill off the Native Americans who mind the gold, but you want the gold, what do you do? You go to the place the British call the Gold Coast to get Africans who know how to mine gold. And they become the miners of Mexico, Peru, and Columbia, Brazil…

rastafaritoday.com: What is the importance of recognizing Africa in the Americas? Why should Africans in the Americans find it important to identify Africa in the Americas?

Sheila Walker, PhD: The Americas wouldn’t be what they are without the African presence from the beginning. The wealth of the Americas and the western world-all the Atlantic world, was created by Africans. According to Joseph Ferrie an economic historian, more than 75% of the commodities that fueled the commercial and the industrial revolution in the Atlantic world-therefore setting up the current balance of power, was produced by Africans and their descendants in the Americas. Africans came to the Americas to work, and they worked! They were forced to work from kin to kin. So to even suggest that Africans didn’t build the wealth of the Americas makes no sense. Plus, almost everybody in the Americas was African for the majority of the modern history of the Americas until 1820. According to the most recent database, there were 27,422 slave trips and in about 1820, three out of every four people that crossed the Atlantic came from Africa not Europe. That’s a huge demographic weight, isn’t that significant?

rastafaritoday.com: Yes, it is significant. But, what should this knowledge do for these Africans in the Americas now, and what should this knowledge do for them in the future?

Sheila Walker, PhD: Well, the European culture in the Americas is preserved in museums, everybody goes to these museums to learn about being proud about who they are. So, we have a right to be there too, we have a right to have all the benefits [as Americans]. But there is more, concretely, one of the issues right now is reparation. People who didn’t get anything in any kind of way produced seventy-five percent of the commodities produced that fueled the industrial revolution. These people were worked to death.

If you look at the scientific research done on those skeletal remains of those [African] people who lived in New York in the 1700s-although New York allegedly had no slavery, but did! Those people were worked to death. Their skeleton shows that they were worked to death to build the wealth of the Americas, so it seems only reasonable that there should be recognition of that role and therefore some compensation. Other people have been compensated for doing much less. Africans built the Americas. African descendants should be compensated for our ancestors’ role in the building of the Americas. And its all of the Americas, there is only one country in the Americas where is no organized group of African descendants and that is El Salvador.

rastafaritoday.com: So you are saying that your work should be a tool for them to claim their heritage?

Sheila Walker, PhD: It is also important for us as African descendants in the Americas to have a sense of our belonging in the world. We are told that we are this oppressed minority, what kind of minority? There are 150-200 million people of obvious and claimed African origin in the Americas, that’s a lot of people! We need to know… English is not the first language of the African Diaspora, its Portuguese. Brazil is the second largest African nation on the planet and we need to know that and we need to go there as if that’s part of our family.

To have a sense of the African Diaspora is to have a sense of global belonging and global entitlement. My sense of identity is that I am an African Diasporan with a US passport. When I go to Brazil, I don’t expect to be treated as a tourist, I expect to be treated as a sister or a cousin. I expect to be taken home and it happens! If I said, “Oh, I am from the United States” and that is my whole identity, why would anyone want to share their culture with me? And with one of those disdainful attitudes saying, “Oh, they are poor people.” They might be materially poor, but we have so much to learn from them in terms of cultural richness, the everyday presence of their Africanity. I went to Brazil looking for them, but what I found was “us”. And I just find more and more us. I found us in Paraguay, Bolivia in every place!

So we need to understand that the world is ours, this “I am an oppressed minority” give me a break! I am not a minority first of all. Having a sense of Africans being the first on the planet, and thinking about what Africa has given to the world, the first contributions was people! That’s pretty great. We have these self esteem problems that are based on ignorance and on brain washing. Carter G. Woodson talked in the 1930s about the Mis-Education of the Negro. Well, it is now up to us to educate ourselves properly and to educate everybody else too, so that they know who we are and what they owe to us. Dubois talked about the gifts of black folks, well, we have given lots of gifts, we have been extremely generous, its time for us to get a little feedback at this point, a little reciprocity.

rastafaritoday.com: What about blacks becoming more active in their communities, wherever they are located, in Jamaica, Brazil and within the American political system to get these rights that are due to them?

Sheila Walker, PhD: Yes, we need to be active everywhere. One of the points that’s made in this article, is that we need to be in every room where anything is going on… we need to be in all rooms doing everything, but we need to be there with a consciousness. And our consciousness needs to be about the fact we have to be our own best friends. You’ve gotta work for your own interests. Everybody is working for their own interest and everybody interests are not the same as ours. There was a whole bunch of people involved in the Trans-African slave trade for almost 400 years, everybody was involved but not everybody was on the same side. There were people who saw this as the biggest business in the world at the time-which it was, and they saw it as a way to get rich and a way to try to de-humanize people… where human beings were not counted as humans but items of labor… humans were calculated fractionally.

Now you cant think that someone who would calculate you as a fraction of a human being has similar interest to yours. That’s the basis of where we are now. Some people have privileges as a result of the role that their ancestors played in the slave trade and other people are at a disadvantage because the role of their ancestors. We need to look at the current inequalities as having been created by the trans-Atlantic slave trade not as a result of any deficiency. Why were Africans capture-able? Europeans had guns, Africans didn’t. It had nothing to do with intelligence obviously, since many of our best and brightest got to help Europe create this society in the Americas. And so we need to have that kind of perspective to understand, how we got to where we are, who did what to whom.

We need to stop talking about slaves. I don’t believe in slaves. I believe that Europeans tried to de-humanize Africans, but they were not successful. How can you say that the people who created the only classical musical form in the United States were dehumanized? It makes no sense. In the 1950s when the U.S. was doing its big diplomatic thrust, whom did they send? Jazz musicians! They didn’t send blue grass singers, they sent jazz musicians to show American culture, doesn’t that suggest that a lot of the characterization of what makes this culture unique is a result of our presence? Well, we need to know that.

We need to stop seeing other people of African origin in the Americas as foreigners, we need to see the similarities, similarities in everything, language, religion, spirituality, food, dances… all the stuff that characterizes people. We need to understand that we are all scattered faces in the African Diaspora. We share a culture, that came from the same place and that in spite of all the efforts to destroy it, is still alive and well, growing and one evidence of it, is its continued appropriation-by others. If there is something wrong with this culture, why is it being appropriated and commercialized, and re-appropriated by others? We need to know that and we need to claim it.
—–

Sheila Walker is the author of African Roots/American Cultures: Africa in the Creation of the Americas. She is also the Annabel Irion Worsham Centennial Professor, College of Liberal Arts, at the Center for African and African American Studies at the University of Texas, Austin.