Reggae Rastafari and the Rhetoric of Social Control

Who changed Bob Marley’s famous peace-and-love anthem into “Come to Jamaica and feel all right”? <p> When did the Rastafarian fighting white colonial power become the smiling Rastafarian spreading beach towels for American tourists?<p> Drawing on research in social movement theory and protest music <i>Reggae Rastafari and the Rhetoric of Social Control</i> traces the history and rise of reggae and the story of how an island nation commandeered the music to fashion an image and entice tourists.<p>Visitors to Jamaica are often unaware that reggae was a revolutionary music rooted in the suffering of Jamaica’s poor. Rastafarians were once the target of police harassment and public condemnation. Now the music is a marketing tool and the Rastafarians are no longer a violent counterculture but an important symbol of Jamaica’s new cultural heritage.<p>This book attempts to explain how the Jamaican establishment’s strategies of social control influenced the evolutionary direction of both t