john eden
male pale and stale
how is that going, do you think?
reggae and overt religiosity
- Thread starter rwtt
- Start date
how is that going, do you think?
Room with a view
Banned
^slowly but surely as evolution is want to do. should hit critical mass about 2012 i reckon.
pattycakes_
Can turn naughty
i'll take reggae over religiosity any day
CrowleyHead
Well-known member
lol. I know Homophobia and Rasta Beliefs aren't hand in hand. Not everybody in that field of music is a Rasta. Nor are they a homophobe. But the two occasionally cross, no?
And Buju's all rootsy nowadays, hence my hippy comment. He's far changed from his original output, no? He's gone from a regular dancehall dude to a guy preaching peace and prosperity. And in spite of the fact that his work is a lot more essentially positive and innocent... a song that he made when he was really young, and that he might possibly not even enjoy now (Again, he made THAT SONG about a decade or two ago. And he's still going through the consequences.)
Again, not really debating the homophobia thing, it just came up again. I'm just saying, you can fault the artists for their opinions if you find it offensive. But to fault Switch & Diplo for working with those artists on music regardless of differences in personal opinion, is petty in my book.
as many have pointed out, reggae culture, perhaps more or just more noticeably than other cultures, is full of glaring, absurd contradictions, where the mouth says one thing even as the hand does the opposite.
just recently a deejay interrupted my set to deliver a message of universal peace, love and tolerance, (because someone had said something about chi-chi-man this or that, not sure if about me? was wearing my skinny jeans and tight t-shirt on the decks at a reggae spot) and then literally 30 seconds later, throw the first punch in a brawl that required a dozen or more to diffuse. (i was quick to drop "too much war" but no one seemed to notice)
in an informative earlier thread someone mentioned Beenie Man's openly gay, in fact flaming mentor Bogle, from whom he took a lot of cues to say the least.
just recently a deejay interrupted my set to deliver a message of universal peace, love and tolerance, (because someone had said something about chi-chi-man this or that, not sure if about me? was wearing my skinny jeans and tight t-shirt on the decks at a reggae spot) and then literally 30 seconds later, throw the first punch in a brawl that required a dozen or more to diffuse. (i was quick to drop "too much war" but no one seemed to notice)
in an informative earlier thread someone mentioned Beenie Man's openly gay, in fact flaming mentor Bogle, from whom he took a lot of cues to say the least.
IdleRich
IdleRich
The only thing that's going to be different in 2012 is there going to be a lot more disillusioned Terence McKenna fans standing around.
Surprised no one has mentioned it yet, but surely one of the attractions about rasta in reggae audience is the narrative of resistance, and the way that is bound up so closely with the religious messages? I'm hard pressed to think of another religion that is so focused on resisting the dominant system and literally escaping from it. Most of us are familiar with the symbols of Christianity, and the so I guess Gospel doesn't hit in the same way (plus the fact that the only salvation mentioned is transcendental, after exiting this life). With the reggae, it's both the resistance and the fact it presented in such a way as to make it alien and exotic (to a non-black, non-JA audience anyway) - the Other, suffused with mystery, the psychedelic touches of dub and ganja smoke...
EDIT: That was DannyL btw. Rich came round for dinner a night back and took over my computer.
yeah no need for that. there are plenty of other reasons to fault these people.
lol
CrowleyHead
Well-known member
This is true.
haha, my fault. i just wondered how something so evangelical could be so indulged by 30-something middle classes, whose default position on religion is usually atheism and lazy hostility. i must say the question seemed more profound in the wee hours when i posted it the other night
nah the original question was ok, some of the answers were'nt.
i think danny l nailed it the best, at least thats one the reasons i got into reggae cos it reasons thru complex difficult issues, establishes itself as a music of resistance ( which is where you see rasta and reggae spread ( thru music more than anything else) across the world. and also speaks about things at local and personal levels like no other music does, plus the music is fantastic at its best.
Room with a view
Banned
and you know this how ?
Simply through being aware of loads of other millennial cults throughout history. People are always predicting that history is going to come to a big climatic endpoint. I think this says more about our brains in states of crisis/stress/religious epiphany/Amazonian junglejuice hallucination than it has predictive power.
Why is McKenna's vision of a the end point of history any different from that of the Jehovah's Witnesses? Because he uses better drugs and fractals and abuses the I Ching? Oh it *must* be true then.
Its he same message, he's just cooler basically and has sold it to our generation on the back of some fun and interesting books.
Account from an apostate: http://dreamflesh.com/essays/endofriver/
Why is McKenna's vision of a the end point of history any different from that of the Jehovah's Witnesses? Because he uses better drugs and fractals and abuses the I Ching? Oh it *must* be true then.
Its he same message, he's just cooler basically and has sold it to our generation on the back of some fun and interesting books.
Account from an apostate: http://dreamflesh.com/essays/endofriver/
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baboon2004
Darned cockwombles.
going back to the talk of long-lost kings and 72 nations and whatever...i think that on the one hand that is kinda boring and 'so what', but in the context of the music it becomes mysterious and mythical..it's not exactly what Oasis are (sorry, were) talking about on record, is it? You don't have to be a Christian to think that the bible has some pretty fucking good stories and allegories, after all.
"rasta isn't the fucking liberal democrats" - i'm using that for a t-shirt.
"rasta isn't the fucking liberal democrats" - i'm using that for a t-shirt.
baboon2004
Darned cockwombles.
better odds than spurs to win the prem, probably (ie better than 67 to the power of threescore and ten, to 1)
rasta had it's own millenialist stuff what with 1977 and the 2 sevens clashing, interestingly, it didn't happen.
The thing is rastafarian belief system isn't that mysterious, it's coded and afrocentric, very flat earth old testament but doesn't have detailed polytheism and isn't that syncretic.
Room with a view
Banned
that you dont really know what will happen any more than me and FWIW, i have no idea what terence mckenna said about 2012
2012 is not so much about the end of time, so focusing on the apocaplytic stuff is a distraction. what it marks, is the beginning of a new year/age according to the mayan calander.. as with our new year celebrations, we dont celebrate the old one passing. just so happens this new year only repeats every 5000 or so years
i think at around that time mankind will achieve a critical mass in believing that all it believed in wasnt worth the time and money it previously invested. surely thats a re-evolutionary thought ?
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