Unesco gives reggae the nod
WORTHY: GENRE ADDED TO WORLD BODY’S COLLECTION OF ‘INTANGIBLE CULTURAL HERITAGE’
Jamaica applies for its inclusion at a meeting on island of Mauritius.
Port Louis
Reggae music, whose chill, lilting grooves found international fame thanks to artists like Bob Marley, yesterday won a spot on the United Nations’ list of global cultural treasures.
Unesco, the world body’s cultural and scientific agency, added the genre that originated in Jamaica to its collection of “intangible cultural heritage” deemed worthy of protection and promotion.
“Reggae music’s 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,” Unesco said.
“While in its embryonic state, reggae music was the voice of the marginalised, the music is now played and embraced by a wide cross-section of society, including various genders, ethnic and religious groups.”
The musical style joined a list of cultural traditions that includes the horsemanship of the Spanish Riding School in Vienna, a Mongolian camel-coaxing ritual and Czech puppetry, and more than 300 other traditional practices spanning from boat-building and pilgrimages, to cooking and dance.
Jamaica applied for reggae’s inclusion on the list this year at a meeting of the UN agency on the island of Mauritius, where 40 proposals were under consideration.
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-World War II years.
Reggae also became associated with Rastafarianism, which deified the former Ethiopian emperor Haile Selassie and promoted the sacramental use of marijuana.
The 1968 single Do the Reggay by Toots and the Maytals was the first popular song to use the name. – AFP