Tuning Hebrew Psalms to Reggae Rhythms: Rastas' Revolutionary Lamentations for Social Change

Cross Currents, Winter, 2000 by Nathaniel Samuel Murrell

NATHANIEL SAMUEL MURRELL is Assistant Professor of Philosophy and Religion at the University of North Carolina, Wilmington, and co-editor/author of two books on Caribbean religion and culture, including the award-winning Chanting Down Babylon: The Rastafari Reader.

Notes

(1.) Rex Nettleford, "Discourse on Rastafarian Reality," in Chanting Down Babylon: The Rastafari Reader, ed. Nathaniel S. Murrell, William David Spencer, and Adrian McFarlane (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1998), 320.

(2.) The biblical stories are made Rasta narratives; the Messiah promised to the Israelites in the Hebrew Bible came to Rastas in the person of Jesus of Nazareth, who was rejected and killed but rose again in the person of The Ever Living One, Ras (prince) Tafari, the late Emperor Haile Selassie I of Ethiopia.

(3.) The Bible is everywhere in the society: Students study it in school for their General Certificate of Education (the London GCE); people swear by it in the courts "to tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth so help me God!" Most Caribbean couples take their marriage vows on biblical authority or principles. Gideon International and other organizations routinely place the Bible in hotels and motels for private reading. Politicians use biblical concepts to appeal to the masses at election time; and, of course, the Bible is taught in churches and synagogues. In an environment where there is no 'separation of church and state,' biblical concepts interface with the people's religious and political thinking. As a result, Rastas "cite-up" (quote) biblical passages with predictable frequency in their reasonings (social, political, and theological discussions) and Nyabinghi.

(4.) Except when stated otherwise, all quotations from the Bible in this essay in reference to Rastas are taken from the KJV, which Rastas use.

(5.) Issembly of Elders, The Ethiopian-African Theocracy Union Policy: EATUP, True Authentic Fundamental Indigenous Original Comprehensive Alternative Policy: FIOCAP (Kingston, Jamaica: Jahrastafari Royal Ethiopian Judah-Coptic Church, n.d.), paragraph X: 12. See also XI (hill) and (II] on Genesis 1:11; and 2:4-5.

(6.) EATUP, xxxiv (1), 63; Smyth, 32.

(7.) Tennyson Smyth, The Living Testament of Rasta-For-I (Kingston, Jamaica: Ras-J-Tesfa, 1980), 30.

(8.) Joseph Owens, "The Rastafarians of Jamaica," in Troubling of the Waters, ed. Idris Hammid (San Fernando, Trinidad: Rahaman Printery, 1973), 167; Michael N. Jagessar, "JPIC and Rastafarians," One World (February 1991): 15.

(9.) Clinton Chisholm, "The Rasta-Selassie-Ethiopian Connections," in Chanting Down Babylon, 166-67.

(10.) Barbara Makeda Lee, Rastafari, The New Creation (Kingston, Jamaica: Jamaica Media Productions, 1981), 30.

(11.) Neil J. Savishinsky," "African Dimensions of the Jamaican Rastafarian Movement," in Chanting Down Babylon, 127; Kenneth Bilby and Elliott Leib, "Kumina, the Howellite Church and the Emergence of Rastafarian Traditional Music in Jamaica," Jamaica Journal 19, no.3 (August-October 1986): 22-29; Verena Reckord, "From Burru Drums to Reggae Ridims: The Evolution of Rasta Music," in Chanting Down Babylon, 231-52.