Reggae: a Jamaican gift to the world
IT SAYS something, or rather plenty, in our view, that of the cultural forms that this year made UNESCO’s list of intangible treasures worth preserving, it is reggae that made global headlines. Not Czech puppetry, or the horsemanship of a riding school in Vienna, or the Mongolian camelcoaxing ritual of any of the undertakings added to this important cultural bank.
We make this observation not out of chestthumping cultural arrogance, but it is affirming that a genre of music that emerged in a small Caribbean island of fewer than three million people, with neither economic might nor technological dominance, would have produced an art form with the global reach and magnitude of reggae.
And that is the critical point. UNESCO, in accepting Jamaica’s application for reggae’s recognition as an “intangible cultural heritage”, didn’t perceive it as a historically important artefact, but as a diminishing artefact, sustained by a small group but worthy of preservation from extinction.
WORLDWIDE APPEAL
For as Olivia Grange, the culture minister, observed in the aftermath of the UNESCO decision in Mauritius, while the music was created in Jamaica, it has “penetrated to all corners of the world”. Or as UNESCO framed it, reggae’s “contribution to international discourse on issues of justice, resistance, love, and humanity underscores the dynamic of the element of being, at once, cerebral, socio-political, sensual, and spiritual”.
Added UNESCO: “The basic social functions of the music – as a vehicle for social commentary, a cathartic practice, and as a means of praising God – have not changed, and the music continues to act as a voice for all.”
There are a number of significant observations, not least being the fact that unlike what many had feared, rather than dying, reggae music is alive and well more than 60 years after its evolution from other Jamaican genres such as ska and rocksteady and with influence from rhythm and blues and other Afrobeat music.
Further, it speaks of the power of the creative imagination – in this case, lyrics that are sometimes sensual, and others spiritual or revolutionary, in concert with haunting riffs and a one-drop beat – and the great truths it can tell whether professing love, expressing joy, or calling people to revolutionary action. Which was the essential element of Bob Marley, reggae’s greatest ambassador, but by no means its only influential proponent. Toots and the Maytals, Desmond Dekker, among others, were part of the early evolution. Jimmy Cliff, Peter Tosh, and Bunny Wailer were important voices, too.
Further, it is to be noted that this now-global music had its genesis mostly among the underclass in the slums of Kingston who used it to present a narrative of their circumstance and to challenge the prevailing social ethos, which they believed didn’t work for them. It is hardly surprising that reggae became the antiphonal music to the chants of Rastafari, a religion of Jamaican origin, or that many reggae musicians, like Marley, became Rastafarians. Perhaps this announcement provides an opportunity to reopen a conversation with the communities of the music’s origin – still among Jamaica’s most depressed – on how its status can be leveraged to help in their transformation.
That reggae has been recognised as an intangible cultural heritage of Jamaica is something to be proud of and worth celebrating. But that shouldn’t mean an attempt at nationalistic exclusiveness and accusing other exponents of the music of appropriation. For reggae is global – a Jamaican gift to the world.