Bob Marley converted the spirit of Easter into a holy song, titled “redemption song”. A philosopher and poet, in this song, he became a prophet.
Fulfil the book!
Fulfil the book!!
Fulfil the book!!!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kOFu6b3w6c0
[Verse 1]
Old pirates,
yes, they rob I
Sold I to the merchant ships
Minutes
after they took I
From the bottomless pit
But
my hand was made strong
By the hand of the Almighty
We forward
in this generation
Triumphantly
[Chorus]
Won't
you help to sing
These songs of freedom?
'Cause all I ever have
Redemption songs
Redemption songs
[Verse 2]
Emancipate
yourselves from mental slavery
None but ourselves can free our minds!
Have
no fear for atomic energy
'Cause none of them can stop the time
How
long shall they kill our prophets
While we stand aside and look?
Some
say it's just a part of it
We've
got to fulfill the book
Toyin Falola
Department of History
The University of Texas at Austin
104 Inner Campus Drive
Austin, TX 78712-0220
USA
512 475 7222 (fax)
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kenneth harrow
professor emeritus
dept of english
michigan state university
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The One Love Peace Concert was a large concert held in Kingston on April 22, 1978, during a time of political civil war in Jamaica between opposing parties Jamaican Labour Party and the People's National Party. The concert came to its peak during Bob Marley & The Wailers' performance of "Jammin'", when Marley joined the hands of political rivals Michael Manley (PNP) and Edward Seaga (JLP).
kenneth harrow
professor emeritus
dept of english
michigan state university
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Hallelujah! Here’s someone chilling in his backyard (Easter vibes)
The very first thing that we have to get clear is what the Rastafari mean by Babylon, so that we don’t conflate it with other more exact/ exacting definitions of Babylon, as we are likely to do when we sing “ Rivers of Babylon.”; or other confusions about the frequent references to “ The Twelve Tribes of Israel” - an organisation to which I belonged in 1985, as a member of the Tribe of Judah.
Hear Burning Spear shouting here in Christopher Columbus: Twelve Tribes of Israel!
For good measure, I expect our honorary Nigerian Jamaican Professor of Philosophy, Dr. John Ayotunde (Tunde) Isola Bewaji , to join in the fray.
As a reggae connoisseur who is also interested in African-Caribbean history and identities, I don’t know to what extent Professor Kenneth Harrow views himself as a baldhead or a fellow rebel, nevertheless I should like to come down heavily on his side at this stage of the discussion, in support of his position about the shifting sands of time and how evanescent the identities and definitions of “they” and ”them” can be, even as the values that control those definitions remain constant. The most humble example that I can think of at the moment is what John Kerry once said: “I don’t want to claim that God is on our side. As Abraham Lincoln told us, I want to pray humbly that we are on God’s side.”
Bob Marley didn’t live in a vacuum; his very existence and his fame cannot be separated from the context in which he was born and lived on. His Redemption Song is latecomer to the show and was one of the very last songs he composed and sang from his sickbed, more or less as a last will and testament: “Won’t you help me sing, these songs of Freedom?”
The long history of slavery and piracy is a constant theme in Reggae music. “Pirates” is always them and they, i.e. the enemy. So we have Peter Tosh, singing, “I saw World War II when the pirates came right through” and in “ Stand firm” – we hear Tosh protesting,
“Then the parson tell I say
Then the parson tell I say
If I want to be pure within
I've got to come confess my sins
Another pirate
Another pirate I say”
Who is the “we“ and who is the “ them” in Bob Marley’s “ We and Them” – that was released in the same album, “ Uprising”?
In some of his songs, there is both a local We and a local Them in the Jamaican context, in which there is and has always been some degree of political infighting in that country, some people are we and some are “them”, as in “Them belly full but we hungry”. The "them" and we transcend confinement in a Jamaican locality, to the extent that that was the song we heard blaring from the loudspeakers of the opposition party vans, the NPP and NPN and even Fela’s MOP (Movement of the People) in Port Harcourt, during the Nigerian presidential elections in 1983.
Bob Marley defines the “we” very sharply in Get up, Stand Up (for your rights) and in “So much things to say”, where he says
“So, don't you forget (no way) your youth
Who you are and where you stand in the struggle”
We all remember How Bob Marley brought Jamaica’s the opposing party leaders, the JLP’s Edward Seaga and the PNP’s Michael Manley, together in that historic One Love Peace Concert On 22nd April 1978.
(To be continued)
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It’s important, no rush, and it doesn’t have to be covered in a slipshod manner.
The Hebrew prophetic cannon officially closed with Malachi , about 458 before Jesus was born, but I don’t think that Oga Falola conveniently glorifying Bob Marley as a “ Prophet” should cause any offence to the Jewish Authorities , as long as Marley is not proclaimed a Hebrew Prophet. Unlike the Muslims, the Jewish Authorities don’t even countenance Jesus of Nazareth as a “ Prophet”, of Isreal, let alone their Messiah. However, referring to Bob Marley as a Prophet could irritate many a Muslim fundamentalist or not so fundamentalist, since the shahada proclaims Muhammad ( S.A.W.) is the Last Prophet or the Seal of the Prophets and in his last sermon he himself proclaimed, “ No prophet will come after me.” Oga falola, of course, means prophet in a less theological sense, more in tune with Allen Ginsberg’s definition of a prophet as one who ( like William Blake) looks into his heart and speaks, or to quote Sir Philip Sidney "Fool," said my Muse to me, "Look in thy heart and write.”
When he asks in his Redemption Song,
“How long shall they kill our prophets
While we stand aside and look?”
The list is long – elsewhere he has told us,
“I'll never forget no way
They crucified Jesus Christ
I'll never forget, no way
They stole Marcus Garvey for rights ho-ooh!
I'll never forget, no way
They turned their back on Paul Bogle
Hey! So don't you forget (no way) your youth
Who you are and where you stand in the struggle”
With the many conspiracy theories surrounding his death, he may have also been subtly referring to himself and including himself in the prophetic category. There are also a number of conspiracy theories about the death of pop’s greatest guitarist, Jimi Hendrix.
Some background to understanding Robert Nesta Marley
Pivotal: Marcus Garvey and what is Black Zionism
Also very important : What the Rastafari mean by Zion
And in Exodus, what Bob Marley could have meant by
“Oh, well, well, well
Open your heart, uh!
And look within
Are you satisfied
With the life you're living?
We know where we're going
We know where we're from
We're leaving Babylon
We're going to the Father's land
In this exodus
Movement of Jah people”
( To be continued)
It’s a long list of seers and prophets of Africa and Diaspora, from Luqman to our more liberal anointments of persons such as Patrice Lumumba the martyr, Kwame Nkrumah who radically deviating from the Gospel of Jesus when he famously said, “ Seek ye first the political kingdom and all things shall be added unto you”, right up to the other martyr Walter Rodney, the prophets are indeed many, and indeed, in so far as Rastafari is a religion and a movement ( the Rastafarian Twelve Tribes of Israel had a “ Prophet Gad”) in so far as Robert Nesta Marley did not claim to be a Hebrew Prophet or a Prophet of Islam, who wants to forfeit him a right to the title of Prophet/ Rasta Messenger / Rastafari prophet of a moral universe of the Rastafari religion?
Third World had a hit, “Lagos Jump”
( To be concluded shortly)