Chanting Down Babylon: The Rastafari Reader

by Nathaniel Samuel Murrell (Editor)

This anthology explores Rastafari religion, culture, and politics in Jamaica and other parts of the African diaspora. An Afro-Caribbean religious and cultural movement that sprang from the streets of Kingston, Jamaica, in the 1930s, today Rastafari has close to one million adherents. The basic message of Rastafari—the dismantling of all oppressive institutions and the liberation of humankind—even has strong appeal to non-believers who are captivated by reggae music, the lyrics, and the "immortal spirit" of its enormously popular practitioner, Bob Marley. Probing into Rastafari's still evolving belief system, political goals, and cultural expression, the contributors to this volume emphasize the importance of Africana history and the Caribbean context. "Long before the term 'Afrocentricity' came into popular use in the United States, Jamaican Rastafarians had embraced the concept as the most important recipe for naming their reality and reclaiming their black heritage in the African diaspora." (From the The Rastafarian Phenomenon)

467 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1998

Reviews

[Tom Schulte · Rating 4 out of 5]

Chanting is a fascinating, engrossing exegesis of the Rasta religion. It becomes, unconsciously, a study of the growth and development of a religion as this product of the Twentieth Century is fully documented. Consider a religion whose Messiah (Haile Selassie I, former Emperor of Ethiopia) denies his own divinity and whose prophet (Marcus Garvey) denies the religion's godhead and sacrament (ganja). The 441-page book includes an index and glossary and consists of mulitple, carefully annotated chapters written by different authors. While this results in some duplication, a clear picture of what is going on can be had from the triangulation slightly different points of view. Bob Marley, as de facto evangelist for the cause, figures in this book as due other significant reggae musicians like Jimmy Cliff, Peter Tosh and Burning Spear. From obscure Rasta foundation texts (from the eccentric founder Leonard Howell) to Rastafarian portrayals in film, Chanting Down leaves no stone unturned in seeking the truth about Rasta.

[Shamou Pusey · Rating 5 out of 5]

I definitely raspect the effort and work put in this book. I just advise the reader who is sighting up Rastafari for the first time, to get rooted in Christ first because there is a lot of different views of who HIM is and confuse the I. But still ones road will become purified by trial and fire. This is a great book.