Full Description
On the basis of a body of reggae songs from the 1970s and late 1990s, this book offers a sociological analysis of memory, hope and redemption in reggae music. From Dennis Brown to Sizzla, the way in which reggae music constructs a musical, religious and socio-political memory in rupture with dominant models is vividly illustrated by the lyrics themselves. How is the past remembered in the present? How does remembering the past allow for imagining the future? How does collective memory participate in the historical grounding of collective identity? What is the relationship between tradition and revolution, between the recollection of the past and the imagination of the future, between passivity and action? Ultimately, this case study of 'memory at work' opens up a theoretical problem: the conceptualization of time and its relationship with memory. -- .
Contents
List of tablesList of boxesList of figuresAcknowledgementsIntroductionPart I. A study in elective affinity: music, religion and memory1. Reggae and Rastafari: a history2. Interpreting songs: notes on methodology3. Analysis of reggae charts, 1968-20004. The construction of a musical memory in reggae musicPart II. Remembering the past5. Slavery and the diaspora: temporal and spatial articulations6. The construction of a religious chain of memoryPart III. Revealing the future7. Messianism, between past and future8. Hope and redemption9. The end of the world as future-presentPart IV. From revelation to revolution10. The construction of a sociopolitical memory of liberation11. Rhetoric of oppression and social critique12. Resistance and revolutionPart V. Conclusion13. Time and memoryBibliographyIndex -- .
