How did a musician whose songs were suffused with messages of anti-capitalism and anti-imperialism become so commercialized?
Rastafarians drum and sing during a special prayer and worship meeting at Menengai forest in Kenya.
James Wakibia/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images
The first Rastafarian communities emerged around 1931 in eastern Jamaica. Today, there are over 700,000 Rastafarian communities located on almost every continent.
Reggae, dancehall, and identity: how Jamaican music transformed British society.
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The last original Wailer may have died, but the musician’s lasting influence on music is clear
Lovers Rock from Steve McQueen’s Small Axe series explored the music and Blues party scene of London in the 1970s.
BBC/McQueen Limited/Parisa Taghizadeh
Centred around a Blues Party in London, the second film from the Small Axe anthology captured the excitement of setting up a party but missed things about sound system culture in the UK.
Ugandan opposition politician Bobi Wine takes a selfie with Zimbabwe’s opposition leader Nelson Chamisa
Aaron Ufumeli/EPA-EFE
Bobi Wine in Uganda does it; so do the Economic Freedom Fighters in South Africa. The red beret is worn to signify the revolutionary. Its power lies in a symbolism that combines art and politics.
A 1981 odd and eerie protest song, ‘Ghost Town’, still resonates today. It remains a cry out against injustice, against closed off opportunities by those who have pulled the ladder up.
Cape Town reggae artist, Teba Shumba.
Tuomas Järvenpää
Reggae in South Africa has lost its visibility and prominence inside the country after apartheid. But local artists have built up extensive international links.
Bob Marley is still reggae’s most iconic figure, 35 years after his death at the age of 36.
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More than three decades after his death reggae icon Bob Marley’s music remains meaningful. It still has the potential to catalyse conversation not often had in the postcolonial world.
Bob Marley’s album ‘Legend’ is still an international bestseller.
Bob Marley is one of those rare artists who continues to touch the hearts of millions of people across the world, even though he died more than three decades ago.
One of popular music’s most influential artists, Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry, turned 80 this year. It is a good time to acknowledge his work as irreducibly complex, deeply layered, subtle and nuanced.