Thoughts on Majek Fashek

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Gloria Emeagwali

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Jun 5, 2020, 4:45:20 PM6/5/20
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A few days ago, I realized for the first time, how Majek Fashek arrived at his poetic stage name. He simply took the initial letters of his first and last names and ended up with his unforgettable cognomen. Cool.

We should recall, that when he took the stage about thirty years ago, he was among the first of his kind, in this genre of music, in the African continent. Along with Ras Kimono and Alpha Blondy of Côte d’Ivoire, Majek Fashek belonged to a rarefied select group of rebel musicians who dared. Cote D’Ivoire’s Alpha Blondy was probably the first in Africa, and the anti apartheid critic Lucky Dube of South Africa, not far behind. Majek Fashek brought to the table, additional awareness of the applicability and relevance of popular resistance through reggae music.

My dear Majek Fashek, you were wrong- a hapless victim of theological propaganda- when you sang ” Only the angels of God are White,” but you were right in about everything else, so I forgive you, and blame instead, the perpetrators of the poisonous supremacist mythology. It did not get the best of you and you fought it as best you could, with vigor and tenacity. ”Religion is politics,” this “prisoner of conscience” reminded us, as he invoked the powers to “send down the rain.”

May he triumphantly join the illustrous ancestors of song, of Africa and the diaspora. His music 🎶 lives on.

GE

Biko Agozino

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Jun 5, 2020, 8:05:04 PM6/5/20
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The Rainmaker was following the footsteps of another reggae musician, Sunny Okosun, with classics like Fire in Soweto, or Papa's Land and the more High Lifey Which Way Nigeria but ended up as an Evangelist with Praise the Lord gospel music perhaps because it sells more for Naija. Paul Gilroy recognizes the currents of the exchange of cultures between the Diaspora and the Motherland in The Black Atlantic with the Aladura church drumming of Okoson surfacing in Buju's dancehall rhythm and Fela's horns recognizable from the Soul of James Brown and the trumpets of Jazz. Biko










Biko

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Ademola Dasylva

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Jun 6, 2020, 6:28:05 AM6/6/20
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Good morning my sister, Gloria. I read and enjoyed your thoughts on Majek Fashek, beautiful as always. The portion that caught my attention more was your interpretation of some lines in his "So Long Too Long lyrics: 

They say you are black, they say you are brown
They say dem white, they say you are brown
But only the Angels of God is white now
Only the Angels of God is white ...

They say you are black,
They say you are brown
But only the Angels of God is white now
But only the Angels of Jah is white ...

Like a patch of cloud in the sky, the shape of which may seem different to different observers, a piece of art work, poetry or music is capable of different logical interpretations. Similarly, your interpretation of the third and fourth lines of the above two verse paragraphs, respectively, suggests that Makek Fashek believes that only the Angel of God are white. May be, and may be not. Rather, the lines, I suppose, are a continuation of his sarcasm on, and rejection of, the white supremacist teachings. not that he agreed with the doctrine that the Angels of God are white. In poetry, there is the use of ellipses, that is, a deliberate omission of one or more words presumably to be supplied by the reader to for reasons of intelligibility. Here we have black, brown, and the angels of Jah that are white. The missing clause is,  something like, "Just as you're white," that is, referring to the white supremacists. As an advocate of universal brotherhood and mediator among human races, I suspect that Majek Fashek didn't want to sound offensive, hence his deliberate use of ellipses. The whole lyrics underscores the need to embrace a universal Oneness of Humanity with God, devoid of divisive doctrines, and injustice. I guess that's also part of what the current George Floyd's protest is all about. 

Cheers.


Prof. Ademola Omobewaji  Dasylva,  FNAL
(Professor of African Literature, Oral Poetics & Performance), 
Department of English;
Coordinator,  Ibadan Cultural Studies Group (ICSG);
Chairman, Board of TOFAC (International);
Recipient, 2009 Distinguished  Africanist Award for Research Excellence, University of Texas at Austin, USA
Recipient, 2019 Asante Award for Outstanding Research in African Studies, University of Georgia, Athens, USA.
Rm. 68, Faculty of Arts, University of Ibadan, Nigeria.
+234(0)802 350 4755

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Harrow, Kenneth

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Jun 6, 2020, 1:07:02 PM6/6/20
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i like ademola's reading, esp on the point of irony. seems convincing to me
k

kenneth harrow

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michigan state university

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Emeagwali, Gloria (History)

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Jun 6, 2020, 1:07:02 PM6/6/20
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 I turned these verses over in my head many times over the last few decades and could not come up with another interpretation, Prof.  I had hoped to meet Majek one day and bring this up with him but this did not happen, unfortunately.  All the while, I kept  thinking of the number of today’s Christians that are yet to accommodate Asian, Black Australian, Maoris, Native American, and African  religious iconography beyond tokenism in a religion that claims universality. 

Needless to say that Islam has avoided such a problem,  given its fundamental denunciation of  religious iconic representation, and has the advantage here.

But, I do hope that your interpretation of Majek’s statement  is the correct one. 

Thank you immensely for your comment, Prof. Dasylva.

Professor Gloria Emeagwali 
Prof. of History/African Studies, CCSU

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Harrow, Kenneth

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Jun 6, 2020, 1:35:47 PM6/6/20
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i like your comment gloria, but if i may, believe me, race is a big, and often not terribly pretty picture, throughout much of the islamic world. you will hear of the black bilal whom mohammed chose to do the call to prayers. but the folk traditions about slaves, the really fundamental racism that marked the value of women in the middle east--oh boy. there's a lot of heavy heavy racism that, unfortunately, needs tons of work. and iconography is still there; just begin w persian miniatures.
by the way, the traditions and racism i can say i know well about runs from morocco across to egypt. everywhere. more generally, in syria, lebanon, etc., still terrible stories emerge. there is a long stigma slavery has left throughout the region, and it is still very much there, still needs to be fought. and there are many good people there who are engaged in that fight.
ken


kenneth harrow

professor emeritus

dept of english

michigan state university

517 803-8839

har...@msu.edu

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Cornelius Hamelberg

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Jun 6, 2020, 3:54:45 PM6/6/20
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Gloria in Excelsis,       

I beg your pardon! Charity begins at home you know, even if you believe that “ a prophet has no honour in his own country”

How could you forget Nigeria and the then Bendel State’s reggae man King Sonny Okosun !

Sonny Okosun discography .

I’m glad that Brother Biko Agozino (a true nationalist and a fellow patron of  music and the performing arts) beat me to reminding you.

Know that Black’s beautiful, and white’s not that bad either. The best apologia so far:

Lynn Anderson - I beg your pardon I never promised you a rose garden

Black man knows ( no limits to the epistemology) that if he says “ White is beautiful” he will have to sing soulful arias for his supper and if that doesn’t do the trick then he might be declared  a persona non grata in the garden of Nigeria ( as Bob Dylan laments in Spirit on the water.

“I can't go to paradise no more

I killed a man back there”

With the always highly allusive Dylan, that was but a Biblical reference, to man’s expulsion from the Garden of Eden…

 Funnily enough,  - and it’s the power of music and musical culture that I’m invoking here  - Sir Victor Uwaifo, Sonny Okosun, Benin City as one of the culture epi-centres of Nigeria, certainly boasting a great dance culture, plus the news that my classmate Sylvester Abimbola Young was teaching Maths at the University of Benin was a good enough motive for me to take the job I was being offered in Bendel, but trust the power of a woman’s imagination ( this time, my Better Half who had swiftly done her research and laid her conclusions on the table: WE are going to Port Harcourt! Why? “It’s known as “The Garden City of Nigeria”  - according to one Guy Arnold – in his “Modern Nigeria”?  which - at the time, caused me to have visions of Amsterdam another Garden City! Port Harcourt and the Romeo Hotel where Prince David Bull and the Seagulls International often held house, was the place and of course, on my second tour, the first pilgrimage was to  Cardinal Rex Lawson ’s Buguma

 Some  more on the awesome power of a woman’s imagination: When I announced to my Better Half, that I am once again the benevolent dictator of my own blog ( We Sweden), the editor-in-chief, Supreme censor, language inspector and I can say exactly what I want to say, she smiled and confirmed that I am now, as she put it, “The Great Falola” of my own blog…


Emeagwali, Gloria (History)

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Jun 6, 2020, 7:05:33 PM6/6/20
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Ken,

You are right about racism in the Arab world. It is painfully  extensive, but I was
 referring to religious iconography in Islam. There is 
astounding "calligraphic imagery" but not personalized portraits
and sculptured images.

Now  the pragmatic reason in Islam may  be to preempt that polytheistic/monotheistic tension that we spoke about,  and to prevent the worship of  sculptured divinities of clay and marble and so on, but whatever 
the reason,   Islam  ended up with a more palatable universal appearance, 
than its religious sibling.


GE







Professor Gloria Emeagwali
History Department, Central Connecticut State University
www.africahistory.net
Gloria Emeagwali's Documentaries
2014 Distinguished Research Excellence Award in African Studies
 University of Texas at Austin
2019   Distinguished Africanist Award                   
New York African Studies Association
 


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Emeagwali, Gloria (History)

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Jun 6, 2020, 7:34:27 PM6/6/20
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Cornelius, The Wise,
You and Biko are quite right.

Okosun's 1977 album," Fire in Soweto" actually predates 
Alpha Blondy's "Jah Glory" of 1981,  Majek Fashek's "Prisoner of Conscience"
 and Lucky Dube's "Rastas Never Die" of 1984.  


So subject to new information, Okosun wears the crown as Africa's first reggae singer.  
 Blondy hit the road  with Reggae music such as Jah Glory, Cocody Rock, Apartheid is Nazism etc, while Dube started off with Mbaqanga before his first reggae album Rastas Never Die.



Professor Gloria Emeagwali
History Department, Central Connecticut State University
 


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Gloria in Excelsis,       

Cornelius Hamelberg

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Jun 6, 2020, 10:08:16 PM6/6/20
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In Excelsis Gloria,

Are you sure that “Okosun wears the crown as Africa's first reggae singer? “?

One would have thought that our Ethiopian Brethren must have produced a few Reggae artists, singers  sinners, bands, long before Sonny Okosun , considering the Status of Emperor Haile Selassie in Rastafarian religion/way of life, the contacts since very long ago, between Jahmaica and Ethiopia,  the fact that there is a Rastafari colony/ settlement in Ethiopia …( that was a nice slice  of Ethiopian reggae that you played in the introduction to your video about Ethiopia and the supposed whereabouts of the Ark of the Covenant.

 Sierra Leone too had a lot of “ By the Rivers of Babylon” type of  Reggae gospel chanting by our Sierra Leone Jamaican communities that go back to the days when the first Marron Church outside of Jamaica was founded and established in Freetown, more than one hundred years ago, and the constant traffic  - and migrations/ emigrations between Freetown and Kingston, people like Berthan Macaulay ( who Cornelius knew personally) there are so many Jamaicans and Jamaican descendants in Freetown…

There’s a lot of reggae in Sierra Leone  since the start of reggae music but no major / megastar from that country.

One last note and this is in connection with what dear you and dear Ken have been discussing recently, about alleged Arab/ Islamic / Muslim racism. I don’t want to get involved in your discussion since it’s often about the pot accusing the kettle of being black, but seriously, take a look at this:

 The Tragedy of White Injustice by Marcus Garvey

Enjoy: Habib Koite : Den Ko


 


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Harrow, Kenneth

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Jun 6, 2020, 10:08:38 PM6/6/20
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hi gloria
less personalized portraits, yes, somewhat. i have so many paintings and images from various parts of the muslim world. travel to senegal, west africa, there are images of the marabouts who are the founders or heads of the orders everywhere, on buses, cars, business fronts etc.
still, little of mohammed, that's true. you cross the desert there are monuments and shrines to the marabouts everywhere. the cars stop, circle them, and then go on. they are an immediate part of many many people's lives.
still there is a difference, just as in judaism i can't really think of any images of moses or the prophets.
i also can't quite see how much that might matter, since as i argued earlier, people pray to these intercessors for baraka all the time.

i am struck by two aspects of christianity that touch on your poiint: the focus on icons, in eastern orthodox christianity. and of course the great iconoclastic controversy within christianity that was part of the split between western and eastern christianity. never mind why they really split: the western church came to value the image, the eastern not in the same way, and so eventually portraits of jesus and saints and mary, sculptures, monuments in their honor, the churches from the middle ages on, all that constructed images filled by cultural views of the world, and nothing became more ironically painful than europeans coming to africa to teach them about their savior, the blond, blue eyed boy. in a sense the antagonisms that islam incurred were also tied culturally to master-slave orders.
i'm sorry to go on. the heart of the worship for judaism and islam lies in the word. i don't know how that fits with your evocation of polytheism as part of a divide, but the word--spoken or written--lies at the heart of african traditional beliefs as it does in judaism and islam. the written word; the spoken word; the chanted word; the memorized qur'an; the prayers that are spoken, chanted, repeated, learned, written all over the mosques, the calligraphic worshiip and artistic development of the word. Sure Cornelius will cite john, in the beginning was the word, but really, in the beginniing for every religion was the word that was there before, that got picked up, repeated, reiterated, and rewritten one more time, as if it had just begun again.
ken

kenneth harrow

professor emeritus

dept of english

michigan state university

517 803-8839

har...@msu.edu

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Ibrahim Abdullah

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Jun 6, 2020, 10:32:13 PM6/6/20
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Sonny wanted to compete with Fela---the latter asked him how many times he has fought state officials; and how many times he has gone to jail. Sonny did not respond. That was end of competition. 

Sent from my iPhone

On 7 Jun 2020, at 2:08 AM, Cornelius Hamelberg <hamelberg...@gmail.com> wrote:



OLAYINKA AGBETUYI

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Jun 6, 2020, 11:41:06 PM6/6/20
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Oga Dasylva.

I tend to agree more with GE's interpretation.  

To be frank the lyrics show Majek Fashek as a half baked Rastafarian.

Can you imagine Bob Marley saying only God's Angel is white?  If it is supposed to be sarcastic the sarcasm has not worked.

A Rastafarian would not come up with the phrase Jah's Angel.  Rastafarianism is an alternative to Christiamity which Rastafarians put in brackets in view of the legacy of slavery.

This is why Bob Marley's Redemption song does not feature Jesus Christ as the Redeemer since it was in his name that enslavement of Africans happened.

Marley and the Rastafarians hark back to Solomonic time of the Old Testament and not the New Testament and liken the enslavement of Africans to the Babylonian captivity of the Israelites.  This is why they would not even identify with the Ethiopian church even though they identify with the Solomonic line through Selassie and would rather bypass the church to establish their religious movement in his name and not of Christ or associated Angels.

Fashek did not get these details right as shown in his lyrics which seem to associate the Christian God with Jah and Rastafarianism.

OAA



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Date: 06/06/2020 11:40 (GMT+00:00)
To: USAAfricaDialogue <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Thoughts on Majek Fashek

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Good morning my sister, Gloria. I read and enjoyed your thoughts on Majek Fashek, beautiful as always. The portion that caught my attention more was your interpretation of some lines in his "So Long Too Long lyrics: 

They say you are black, they say you are brown
They say dem white, they say you are brown
But only the Angels of God is white now
Only the Angels of God is white ...

They say you are black,
They say you are brown
But only the Angels of God is white now
But only the Angels of Jah is white ...

Like a patch of cloud in the sky, the shape of which may seem different to different observers, a piece of art work, poetry or music is capable of different logical interpretations. Similarly, your interpretation of the third and fourth lines of the above two verse paragraphs, respectively, suggests that Makek Fashek believes that only the Angel of God are white. May be, and may be not. Rather, the lines, I suppose, are a continuation of his sarcasm on, and rejection of, the white supremacist teachings. not that he agreed with the doctrine that the Angels of God are white. In poetry, there is the use of ellipses, that is, a deliberate omission of one or more words presumably to be supplied by the reader to for reasons of intelligibility. Here we have black, brown, and the angels of Jah that are white. The missing clause is,  something like, "Just as you're white," that is, referring to the white supremacists. As an advocate of universal brotherhood and mediator among human races, I suspect that Majek Fashek didn't want to sound offensive, hence his deliberate use of ellipses. The whole lyrics underscores the need to embrace a universal Oneness of Humanity with God, devoid of divisive doctrines, and injustice. I guess that's also part of what the current George Floyd's protest is all about. 

Cheers.


Prof. Ademola Omobewaji  Dasylva,  FNAL
(Professor of African Literature, Oral Poetics & Performance), 
Department of English;
Coordinator,  Ibadan Cultural Studies Group (ICSG);
Chairman, Board of TOFAC (International);
Recipient, 2009 Distinguished  Africanist Award for Research Excellence, University of Texas at Austin, USA
Recipient, 2019 Asante Award for Outstanding Research in African Studies, University of Georgia, Athens, USA.
Rm. 68, Faculty of Arts, University of Ibadan, Nigeria.
+234(0)802 350 4755

On Fri, 5 Jun 2020, 21:45 Gloria Emeagwali, <gloria.e...@gmail.com> wrote:
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OLAYINKA AGBETUYI

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Jun 7, 2020, 5:50:17 AM6/7/20
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Ken

The Church was split to West and Orthodox or East because the Roman empire that preceded it was split into East and West reflecting the character of the nations contained in them and how the characteristics of polytheism in each that  were absorbed into christian liturgy differ.

OAA



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Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Thoughts on Majek Fashek

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hi gloria
less personalized portraits, yes, somewhat. i have so many paintings and images from various parts of the muslim world. travel to senegal, west africa, there are images of the marabouts who are the founders or heads of the orders everywhere, on buses, cars, business fronts etc.
still, little of mohammed, that's true. you cross the desert there are monuments and shrines to the marabouts everywhere. the cars stop, circle them, and then go on. they are an immediate part of many many people's lives.
still there is a difference, just as in judaism i can't really think of any images of moses or the prophets.
i also can't quite see how much that might matter, since as i argued earlier, people pray to these intercessors for baraka all the time.

i am struck by two aspects of christianity that touch on your poiint: the focus on icons, in eastern orthodox christianity. and of course the great iconoclastic controversy within christianity that was part of the split between western and eastern christianity. never mind why they really split: the western church came to value the image, the eastern not in the same way, and so eventually portraits of jesus and saints and mary, sculptures, monuments in their honor, the churches from the middle ages on, all that constructed images filled by cultural views of the world, and nothing became more ironically painful than europeans coming to africa to teach them about their savior, the blond, blue eyed boy. in a sense the antagonisms that islam incurred were also tied culturally to master-slave orders.
i'm sorry to go on. the heart of the worship for judaism and islam lies in the word. i don't know how that fits with your evocation of polytheism as part of a divide, but the word--spoken or written--lies at the heart of african traditional beliefs as it does in judaism and islam. the written word; the spoken word; the chanted word; the memorized qur'an; the prayers that are spoken, chanted, repeated, learned, written all over the mosques, the calligraphic worshiip and artistic development of the word. Sure Cornelius will cite john, in the beginning was the word, but really, in the beginniing for every religion was the word that was there before, that got picked up, repeated, reiterated, and rewritten one more time, as if it had just begun again.
ken

kenneth harrow

professor emeritus

dept of english

michigan state university

517 803-8839

har...@msu.edu

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Emeagwali, Gloria (History)

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Jun 7, 2020, 2:11:02 PM6/7/20
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The first question is when did reggae actually begin in Jamaica? Some point to 1968 and see it as evolving from SKA and Rock Steady.  If so, what happened in Ethiopia between 1968 and 1977  (Okosun’s Soweto song) as far as Ethiopia’s Sheshamane and reggae music are concerned?The same question applies to Sierra Leone. Do we have evidence of original reggae compositions and performances  in that decade?

 Another big question is about  the dating of a musical genre.  Should we link it to record production? Did Okoson engage in public performances of reggae music before the 1977 record came out? What about small and big  local public performances outside of recording that the artiste would have contributed?

 It is in 1976 that the” Twelve Tribes,” first organized a  migratory trip to Ethiopia, following earlier ones in 1968, 1969 and 1973 -organized by others (Bonacci, 2014) -all  during the ascendancy of reggae as a musical genre in Jamaica.

I am not aware of any original reggae compositions and stars  emerging in Sheshamane during that period. This is an issue that merits more research, however. Your point about Sierra Leone is noted. 

Let us say that Okoson wears the crown as Africa’s first   famous reggae singer😄

Professor Gloria Emeagwali
Prof. of History/African Studies, CCSU


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Femi Kolapo

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Jun 7, 2020, 3:09:36 PM6/7/20
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I’ll add to this an interpretation that these stanzas of Majek Fashek deconstruct the entire color-coded identity prescriptions emanating from “them”. Majek Fashek was challenging both the “them” who assigned to themselves the color “white” while assigning to others the colors black or brown or red etc., but he was also indirectly challenging the belief by those who have been otherized as brown or black that some people are indeed “white” and they are indeed "black" or "brown" simply because they have assigned the color “white” to themselves and different shades of colors b to them!

Those stanzas of his songs, I find, equalize every human by decolorizing them entirely and associating whiteness with the realm beyond the human. It is, in my opinion, a similar conception as Sunny Okosun’s in Holy Wars when he sang, “Some people say there's a Caucasian race// Some people say there's a Mongoloid race// Some people say there's a Negroid race // We don't believe in Racial claims // All we know is the Human Race.” Okosuns’ conception here is entirely humanistic and devoid of a religious reference, though.

And its common knowledge, I suppose, that a conception of white among many African people as a quality associated with a higher spirit or with the spirit realm predated European incursion or the introduction into Africa of Christianity and continues to exist in some indigenous African societies, including among my own Igbonna people, even today. Majek Fashek’s conceptualization of white and especially his reference to “angels of God” in this song, though, seems to have some Christian or Islamic influence. But people everywhere have been able to actualize readings and understandings from Islam and Christianity and from other religious traditions in rebellious ways that challenge all sort of oppressive hegemonies. 


/Femi Kolapo.




CORRECTION ON OKOSUN

I thought something was off in the transcript of Okosun’s Holy Wars found on the Internet which I used in my previous post. On listening to Okosun’s original album again, what he actually said was

“We don't believe in multiple race // All we know is the Human Race.”

What I found on the Web, he probably used in one of his live performances: “We don’t believe in Racial Claims.”


From: Femi Kolapo <kol...@uoguelph.ca>
Sent: Sunday, June 7, 2020 2:52 PM

To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Thoughts on Majek Fashek
 

I’ll add to this an interpretation that these stanzas of Majek Fashek deconstruct the entire color-coded identity prescriptions emanating from “them”. Majek Fashek was challenging both the “them” who assigned to themselves the color “white” while assigning to others the colors black or brown or red etc., but he was also indirectly challenging the belief by those who have been otherized as brown or black that some people are indeed “white” and they are indeed "black" or "brown" simply because they have assigned the color “white” to themselves and different shades of colors b to them!

Those stanzas of his songs, I find, equalize every human by decolorizing them entirely and associating whiteness with the realm beyond the human. It is, in my opinion, a similar conception as Sunny Okosun’s in Holy Wars when he sang, “Some people say there's a Caucasian race// Some people say there's a Mongoloid race// Some people say there's a Negroid race // We don't believe in Racial claims // All we know is the Human Race.” Okosuns’ conception here is entirely humanistic and devoid of a religious reference, though.

And its common knowledge, I suppose, that a conception of white among many African people as a quality associated with a higher spirit or with the spirit realm predated European incursion or the introduction into Africa of Christianity and continues to exist in some indigenous African societies, including among my own Igbonna people, even today. Majek Fashek’s conceptualization of white and especially his reference to “angels of God” in this song, though, seems to have some Christian or Islamic influence. But people everywhere have been able to actualize readings and understandings from Islam and Christianity and from other religious traditions in rebellious ways that challenge all sort of oppressive hegemonies. 


/Femi Kolapo.






_________________________

Femi  J. Kolapo  

History Department *  University of Guelph * Ontario * Canada* N1G  2W1

________________________

SPREAD Journals of African Education: African Journal of Teacher Education || Review of Higher Education in Africa || Recreation and Society in Africa, Asia and Latin America

________________________

Christian Missionary Engagement in Central Nigeria: The Church Missionary Society's All-African Mission on the Upper Niger, (Springer International Publishing, 2019) Preview

 

________________________


From: usaafric...@googlegroups.com <usaafric...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Ademola Dasylva <dasy...@gmail.com>
Sent: Saturday, June 6, 2020 1:19 AM
To: USAAfricaDialogue <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>

Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Thoughts on Majek Fashek
 

CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the University of Guelph. Do not click links or open attachments unless you recognize the sender and know the content is safe. If in doubt, forward suspicious emails to ITh...@uoguelph.ca

Femi Kolapo

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Jun 7, 2020, 3:09:37 PM6/7/20
to usaafric...@googlegroups.com

I’ll add to this an interpretation that these stanzas of Majek Fashek deconstruct the entire color-coded identity prescriptions emanating from “them”. Majek Fashek was challenging both the “them” who assigned to themselves the color “white” while assigning to others the colors black or brown or red etc., but he was also indirectly challenging the belief by those who have been otherized as brown or black that some people are indeed “white” and they are indeed "black" or "brown" simply because they have assigned the color “white” to themselves and different shades of colors b to them!

Those stanzas of his songs, I find, equalize every human by decolorizing them entirely and associating whiteness with the realm beyond the human. It is, in my opinion, a similar conception as Sunny Okosun’s in Holy Wars when he sang, “Some people say there's a Caucasian race// Some people say there's a Mongoloid race// Some people say there's a Negroid race // We don't believe in Racial claims // All we know is the Human Race.” Okosuns’ conception here is entirely humanistic and devoid of a religious reference, though.

And its common knowledge, I suppose, that a conception of white among many African people as a quality associated with a higher spirit or with the spirit realm predated European incursion or the introduction into Africa of Christianity and continues to exist in some indigenous African societies, including among my own Igbonna people, even today. Majek Fashek’s conceptualization of white and especially his reference to “angels of God” in this song, though, seems to have some Christian or Islamic influence. But people everywhere have been able to actualize readings and understandings from Islam and Christianity and from other religious traditions in rebellious ways that challenge all sort of oppressive hegemonies. 


/Femi Kolapo.






_________________________

Femi  J. Kolapo  

History Department *  University of Guelph * Ontario * Canada* N1G  2W1

________________________

SPREAD Journals of African Education: African Journal of Teacher Education || Review of Higher Education in Africa || Recreation and Society in Africa, Asia and Latin America

________________________

Christian Missionary Engagement in Central Nigeria: The Church Missionary Society's All-African Mission on the Upper Niger, (Springer International Publishing, 2019) Preview

 

________________________


From: usaafric...@googlegroups.com <usaafric...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Ademola Dasylva <dasy...@gmail.com>
Sent: Saturday, June 6, 2020 1:19 AM
To: USAAfricaDialogue <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Thoughts on Majek Fashek
 

CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the University of Guelph. Do not click links or open attachments unless you recognize the sender and know the content is safe. If in doubt, forward suspicious emails to ITh...@uoguelph.ca

OLAYINKA AGBETUYI

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Jun 7, 2020, 5:19:18 PM6/7/20
to usaafric...@googlegroups.com, hamelberg...@gmail.com
There are various strains of Reggae.  Bob Marley's strain is Roots Rock Reggae as he defines  it in one of the tracks in Rastaman Vibration. He also championed another strain by the title of one of his tracks called ' Kinky Reggae'

I believe Reggae started in the early 60s with the likes of Jimmy Cliff.  I think he defined it as Fundamental Reggae.

OAA



Sent from my Samsung Galaxy smartphone.



-------- Original message --------
From: "Emeagwali, Gloria (History)" <emea...@ccsu.edu>
Date: 07/06/2020 19:17 (GMT+00:00)
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Thoughts on Majek Fashek

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The first question is when did reggae actually begin in Jamaica? Some point to 1968 and see it as evolving from SKA and Rock Steady.  If so, what happened in Ethiopia between 1968 and 1977  (Okosun’s Soweto song) as far as Ethiopia’s Sheshamane and reggae music are concerned?The same question applies to Sierra Leone. Do we have evidence of original reggae compositions and performances  in that decade?

 Another big question is about  the dating of a musical genre.  Should we link it to record production? Did Okoson engage in public performances of reggae music before the 1977 record came out? What about small and big  local public performances outside of recording that the artiste would have contributed?

 It is in 1976 that the” Twelve Tribes,” first organized a  migratory trip to Ethiopia, following earlier ones in 1968, 1969 and 1973 -organized by others (Bonacci, 2014) -all  during the ascendancy of reggae as a musical genre in Jamaica.

I am not aware of any original reggae compositions and stars  emerging in Sheshamane during that period. This is an issue that merits more research, however. Your point about Sierra Leone is noted. 

Let us say that Okoson wears the crown as Africa’s first   famous reggae singer😄

Professor Gloria Emeagwali
Prof. of History/African Studies, CCSU


Sent: Saturday, June 6, 2020 10:01 PM

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OLAYINKA AGBETUYI

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Jun 7, 2020, 5:19:18 PM6/7/20
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Oga Kolapo.

This is another interesting reading.  Add Bob Marley to the de-racialization train in his  ' Rat Race' masterpiece from the album in honour of George Floyd Rastaman Vibration where he sings:

We have a horse raise
We we have a rat race  
We have a human race
Its a rat race ei ei ace


Here he puns the word race 'rat race' to put the ceaseless toil of capitalism on the cross and deconstructs the idea of race as a distinguishing category in its entirety.

Yes, there is the other worldliness ascribed to white beings among several communities.  When the Aztecs first saw the spanish coquistadors the conquest of their empire was made easy because there was a prophecy of the coming of white Gods which the Aztecs thought the Spanish were and they did not put up adequate resistance associated with the previous valour of their empire because it was thought to be a taboo to fight the Gods.

A similar story accounted for why ordinary Africans did not put up resistance against the white man coupled with the superior fire power which they attributed to the superior power of Gods.  Until recent times some educated Nigerians still speak of white whichcraft which is superior to black witchcraft which allowed Europeans to develop more than Africans.  If there is any witchcraft by that name its middle name is racism.

This is why it is dangerous for Majek Fashek to pander to such thinking by his lyrics of white Angels belonging to God.

OAA



Sent from my Samsung Galaxy smartphone.

-------- Original message --------
From: Femi Kolapo <kol...@uoguelph.ca>
Date: 07/06/2020 20:18 (GMT+00:00)
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Thoughts on Majek Fashek

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I’ll add to this an interpretation that these stanzas of Majek Fashek deconstruct the entire color-coded identity prescriptions emanating from “them”. Majek Fashek was challenging both the “them” who assigned to themselves the color “white” while assigning to others the colors black or brown or red etc., but he was also indirectly challenging the belief by those who have been otherized as brown or black that some people are indeed “white” and they are indeed "black" or "brown" simply because they have assigned the color “white” to themselves and different shades of colors b to them!

Those stanzas of his songs, I find, equalize every human by decolorizing them entirely and associating whiteness with the realm beyond the human. It is, in my opinion, a similar conception as Sunny Okosun’s in Holy Wars when he sang, “Some people say there's a Caucasian race// Some people say there's a Mongoloid race// Some people say there's a Negroid race // We don't believe in Racial claims // All we know is the Human Race.” Okosuns’ conception here is entirely humanistic and devoid of a religious reference, though.

And its common knowledge, I suppose, that a conception of white among many African people as a quality associated with a higher spirit or with the spirit realm predated European incursion or the introduction into Africa of Christianity and continues to exist in some indigenous African societies, including among my own Igbonna people, even today. Majek Fashek’s conceptualization of white and especially his reference to “angels of God” in this song, though, seems to have some Christian or Islamic influence. But people everywhere have been able to actualize readings and understandings from Islam and Christianity and from other religious traditions in rebellious ways that challenge all sort of oppressive hegemonies. 


/Femi Kolapo.



CORRECTION ON OKOSUN

I thought something was off in the transcript of Okosun’s Holy Wars found on the Internet which I used in my previous post. On listening to Okosun’s original album again, what he actually said was

“We don't believe in multiple race // All we know is the Human Race.”

What I found on the Web, he probably used in one of his live performances: “We don’t believe in Racial Claims.”


From: Femi Kolapo <kol...@uoguelph.ca>
Sent: Sunday, June 7, 2020 2:52 PM

Ibrahim Abdullah

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Jun 7, 2020, 6:07:27 PM6/7/20
to usaafric...@googlegroups.com
Kinki and roots reggae were just a variation on the same reggae beat---roots was heavy bass; kinki had a dominant vocal line. Jimmy Cliff's fundamental reggae connects him directly with reggae's precursor: Ska---dry vocal and rhythm guitar! 

Sent from my iPhone

On 7 Jun 2020, at 9:19 PM, OLAYINKA AGBETUYI <yagb...@hotmail.com> wrote:



Cornelius Hamelberg

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Jun 7, 2020, 7:36:04 PM6/7/20
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Re – “Sure Cornelius will cite john, in the beginning was the word…”

John 1 states a fundamental of Christianity:

Verse 1. In the beginning, was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

Verse 14. And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.

How is this to be understood:   “the world was created through the 22 letters of the Hebrew alphabet. “

Maybe, I should ask Lee Scratch Perry?


To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/usaafricadialogue/DM5PR12MB24564621780FAA8CFB37F0F9DA840%40DM5PR12MB2456.namprd12.prod.outlook.com.

Gloria Emeagwali

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Jun 8, 2020, 12:22:48 PM6/8/20
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I met Lee Scratch Perry (LSP) in Central Park, NY, several  years ago. As soon as I saw him I knew that I was meeting a “higher“ power.  Thanks for the link- and all the others. Makes a difference!

LSP’s advice is good. “Drink it. Don’t smoke it”-  although one wonders what tobacco tea tastes like. This reminds me, also, of the day I found myself about 12,000 feet above sea level,  in La Paz, Bolivia. There and then, in that desperate moment of thin air and oxygen deficiency, I realized why coca tea is a necessity not a crime, granted that  hot cocoa tea  did a great job then.

GE




Sent from my iPhone

On Jun 7, 2020, at 7:36 PM, Cornelius Hamelberg <hamelberg...@gmail.com> wrote:



Emeagwali, Gloria (History)

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Jun 8, 2020, 12:22:48 PM6/8/20
to Femi Kolapo, usaafric...@googlegroups.com
This comment about white being associated with the spirit realm seems a plausible explanation for the contentious line, “ only the angels....”
Even so,  the statement plays into the hands of advocates of white supremacy especially since the  tone and pitch of his voice  reflect finality  and agreement with the  troubling statement. But
I would still classify him among the reggae greats. Afterall, this is the only toxic statement that I have come across. 

Voice, demeanor, body language, versatility in instruments, timing and positive audacity all fit the role nicely together and made him great.
Too bad that he decided to smoke the Coca leaf.



Professor Gloria Emeagwali
Prof. of History/African Studies, CCSU



Sent: Sunday, June 7, 2020 2:52 PM

Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Thoughts on Majek Fashek
 

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I’ll add to this an interpretation that these stanzas of Majek Fashek deconstruct the entire color-coded identity prescriptions emanating from “them”. Majek Fashek was challenging both the “them” who assigned to themselves the color “white” while assigning to others the colors black or brown or red etc., but he was also indirectly challenging the belief by those who have been otherized as brown or black that some people are indeed “white” and they are indeed "black" or "brown" simply because they have assigned the color “white” to themselves and different shades of colors b to them!

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