Dancehall reggae and the socio-sexual mores of art

[littlegirltoast]

To say that I am not the world's most ardent reggae fan would be something of an understatement. Lately I have been heard grumbling when anyone puts on the five-song Bob Marley playlist at work, and thinking about what bothers me about his music (which I used to enjoy, two lifetimes ago) has led me to develop the theory that if you will put on Bob

Comments

[roman_mclaze]

"if you will put on Bob Marley records but not Christian rock, then you are being racist."

I too have detected a general aversion to Christian music amongst non-Christians, not only among those who listen to reggae albums (or more likely, just Bob Marley's Legend), but also people who adore New Age chants or other obviously religious art (Even if they aren't exactly educated about it...I once saw a dorm room where a self-identified pagan had used nails to hang a musallah on the wall).

As an atheist who still enjoys the gospel and worship music I grew up with, my sympathy for all the people missing out on good music because of their hangups is tempered by the fact that I can use it as an Asshole Detector. If somebody happily bops along with Skillet's "Hero", but immediately become contemptuous when they find out they're listening to a Christian band, then I give better-than-average odds that they're an intolerant asshole. Probably the kind who is very proud of not being one.

(I fully realize there are plenty of people with horror stories about Christianity...I didn't give up on it just out of some great rational awakening myself. I'm not talking about those people.)

[littlegirltoast]

Hm that's not exactly the point I was making. I listen to Danielson, a bit of Sufjan Stevens and Castanets, and a billion zillion rappers who talk about their Christian or Islamic faith all over the place, some of whom I find difficult to tolerate and some of whom I don't. My aesthetic issues with Bob Marley's oeuvre (which developed after my teens) are probably stronger than my aversion to his lyrical content, but I do have a big problem with what in particular he is expressing, not the least reason being that it is Rastafarianism, of which I have a very low opinion.

(It is not prejudiced to have a low opinion of a philosophy and/or movement.)

But yeah, aside from my perspective that the Judeo-Christian tradition IS a horror story, I also have a weird and complex attachment to the hymns I grew up with. I find them stirring and powerful in a way that is at once comforting and discomfiting.

I just think that (a) "One Love" is an insipid and divisive paean to an intolerant object of worship, and (b) someone who doesn't like other artists who sing about faith or the objects thereof but who puts on Bob Marley is exoticizing and othering him to the point where what he says doesn't matter to them.

[roman_mclaze]

Hell yes on the exoticizing thing! I think that's the same reason why there were so many Americans in the late 90s who wouldn't have been caught dead in a church that wasn't holding a wedding or a funeral but had no qualms with using chanting Benedictines as background for yoga and/or improving their baby's beta-waves.

Also, I confess that I really like some Bob Marley...and that my first experience of his music was from Legend.

[littlegirltoast]

Ha my first experience of Bob Marley was reading a biography when I was thirteen or so. The songs sounded really interesting from their descriptions, so I ordered Legend from BMG or Columbia or whatever music club I was suckered into.