REGGAE MUSIC GETS GLOBAL NOD
Jamaica’s reggae music last year secured a coveted spot on the United Nations’ list of global cultural treasure.
United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), the world body’s cultural and scientific agency, added reggae to its collection of ‘intangible cultural heritage’ deemed worthy of protection and promotion.
UNESCO noted that while reggae started out as “the voice of the marginalised”, it is now played and embraced by a wide cross section of society, including various genders and ethnic and religious groups.
“Its contribution to international discourse on issues of injustice, resistance, love, and humanity underscores the dynamics of the element as being at once cerebral, sociopolitical, sensual, and spiritual,” Paris-based UNESCO stated.
Jamaica applied for reggae’s inclusion on the list in 2018 at a meeting of the United Nations agency here, where 40 proposals were under consideration.
COMPETITION
Reggae was competing for inclusion alongside Bahamian strawcraft, South Korean wrestling, Irish hurling, and perfume making in the southern French city of Grasse.
Reggae emerged in the late 1960s out of Jamaica’s ska and rocksteady styles, also drawing influence from American jazz and blues. It quickly became popular in the United States as well as in Britain, where many Jamaican immigrants had moved in the post-WWII years.
The style is often championed as a music of the oppressed, with lyrics addressing sociopolitical issues, imprisonment, and inequality.
Reggae also became associated with Rastafarianism, which deified the former Ethiopian emperor Haile Selassie and promoted the sacramental use of marijuana.