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ONELOVE JAMDOWN: Music, Rights, and the Imagination of Jamaica

Thu, November 19th, 2020
4:30 pm
- 6:00 pm

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Webinar link, Webinar ID 971 2082 1012, Passcode 942469

Matthew J. Smith, the Sterling Brown ’22 Visiting Professor of Africana Studies will discuss the importance of Reggae in the cultural and political life of Jamaica.

Born out of a context both universal to the black experience and particular to its social circumstances, Reggae music became a recognizable part of the global mainstream in the 1970s. Much of this success was in large measure due to the charismatic influence of Bob Marley. Even at middle age, Reggae has sustained its reputation as rebel music for global youth who remain its biggest consumers. Along the way creation myths have hardened. The microhistories of Reggae’s formation and slow rise remain tangled threads in the larger story of Jamaica.

This multimedia presentation returns to the early years of Reggae drawing out fine details that are critical but often overlooked parts of its biography. It examines these foundational years through reflections on various performances and uses of Bob Marley’s song One Love. It argues that like the song, Reggae’s power can best be appreciated by close consideration of the struggle for civil rights and the cultural intersections between independent Jamaica and the United States in the 1960s.

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