Reggae and Religion!

The worldwide projection of reggae universalized a new musical language and brought into youth culture discussion another element, synthesized within a mystical-messianic system of thought, Rastafarianism. In this sense, Jamaican reggae was the main disseminator of Rastafarian beliefs and codes of behavior throughout the world. Rasta aesthetics itself, evidenced in Bob Marley's enormous dreadlocks, corresponds to one of its main symbols.

The ethical and philosophical discourse against the establishment was brilliantly embedded in the melody of reggae. The Rasta movement and the musical revolution of reggae are, quite rightly, a contemporary development of a long struggle for self-determination and the yearnings for freedom of black Jamaicans, inspired above all by the struggles of the Maroons established in the eighteenth century. Grounded in this discourse, Jamaicans began to abandon the mark of colonial slaves and sought to rebuild their identities. Thus, symbolic liberation came through music.

The Rastafari religion was born from a prophecy by black leader Marcus Mosiah Garvey made in a Kingston church in 1927, where he said: "Look to Africa, for when a black man is crowned, the day of liberation will be near." In 1930, when Ras Tafari Makonnen is crowned Emperor of Ethiopia, Jamaican pastors consult the Holy Scriptures and identify him as the living incarnation of Jah (abbreviated form of Jehovah). According to the Rasta reading of the Bible, God is black and all black people are Ethiopians. The idea of salvation is linked to repatriation, the return to Ethiopia, where the Rastas would be led back by Ras Tafari (who received the name Haillé Selassié) to the promised land of the tribes of Israel.

In this way, many Jamaicans came to see modern capitalist society with different eyes. Blacks, who went from colonial slavery to the captivity of Babylon, symbol of the capitalist system and white civilization, saw in Rastafarianism a philosophy of refusal of this social organization. Garveyism was a kind of bridge between the black Zionisms of the late nineteenth century and the anti-colonial politics of negritude that followed, breaking with North American missionary mentalities and creating a mode of mutual belonging that we can distinguish as the pan-Africanism of solidarity.

Anti-colonial struggles in Africa, grounded in Rastafarianism, assumed a central role in the process of reconstructing the identity of blacks in that region. During the Cold War period, Rasta ideals began to bother politicians and threaten the prevailing system. But despite setbacks, the Rasta message was propagated to the four corners of the world. Even not being well seen and well liked by the "bald-heads", reggae arrives here, where it came to exert influence over the new Brazilian musicality.

In Brazil, the cordiality built by the myth of racial democracy gives way to the adoption of controversial traits. In this sense, reggae enabled artists such as Bob Marley and Jimmy Cliff to deeply influence the movements to revitalize Afro-Bahian music and Afro-Maranhense popular music. The afoxés and Afro blocos of Bahia can be considered important in this period, as much as reggae parties in São Luís do Maranhão. Such manifestations represented a possibility of political mobilization and an awakening of consciousness among black Brazilian youth.

In Bahia, both in Cachoeira and in Salvador, reggae was partly stripped of its original religious content. We can say that here, in a general way, various elements were also incorporated into the mystical-messianic thought that originated in Jamaica. Cultural miscegenation and syncretism certainly contributed to the formation of this Bahian melting pot. As we see, the identification of Brazilian youth with reggae music was not sufficient reason for the complete absorption of the religious component embedded in its message. Even adopting Rasta aesthetics and being sympathizers of part of the discourse, few Brazilians follow the religion to the letter.

Despite being an essentially ethnic music, with a political-existential discourse aimed at black people, there was another essential factor for the adoption of the rhythm in Brazil. When it comes to the field of music itself, an important component must be considered: the structural rhythmic kinship between reggae and certain Brazilian musical manifestations, such as xote and ijexá. At the same time, it must be taken into account that identification with the rhythm also happens as a consequence of the cultural influences left, both in Brazil and in Jamaica, by groups of slaves from the same region of Africa. This cultural heritage was, very probably, kept in the memory of black descendants and reproduced in all sorts of manifestations, including in music.

The most important thing of all is that music was, without any doubt, the main element of identification between the two cultures, the Brazilian and the Jamaican. Reggae thus constitutes a "symbolic bridge" linking distinct peoples geographically distant, but who kept alive the wonderful legacy left by a common ancestor.