| Bob Marley’s musical career although stretched over twenty years was truly relatively short lived, and though through those twenty his style and insights reflected every development and expansion of Jamaican music from ska to rock steady to what has developed into fashionable intercontinental style reggae. Jamaicans in broad spectrum have no doubt over the years, managed to preserve many edifying spiritual and cultural connections to continent of Africa. That African heritage was given a serious political expression by Marcus Garvey, a Jamaican rector, philosopher, prophet, and entrepreneur founder of the Universal Negro Improvement Association. This newly found institution of Marcus Garvey promoted the establishment of a new black state in Ethiopia, Africa. An African state that is free from white ascendancy. Marcus Garvey predicted the crowning of a new black monarch and it was not too long after Marcus Garvey made his proclamation in 1930 that Ras Tafari Makonnen was crowned the Emperor of Ethiopia. Ras Tafari Makonnen the new Emperor of Ethiopia gave himself a new name: "Haile Selassie." The Emperor Hail Selassie declared the he was the 225th ruler in a line dating back to Menelik, the son of King Solomon and Sheba. Marcus Garvey’s prediction motivated his supporters to create and originate the Rastafarian religious movement. For this reason, one can not wholly figure out Bob Marley and The Wailers’ music without drawing reference to this institution. The Rastafarian objective of worship is to the late Emperor of Ethiopia Haile Selassie, but as they say; to each their own. |
