The Rastafarians
The
Rastafarians
Now, I want to go into other fields of the Rastafarian faith like they are
represented in Roots Reggae. The obvious thing, of course, is that they sing
about themselves and how they live their faith. To understand if they sing about
themselves is sometimes a problem caused by the multitude of names that
lyricists use as a synonym of “Rastafarian”. The abbreviation “Rasta”
and the word “Rastaman” are still well understandable, “(Natty) Dread”,
”Bongoman”, “Congoman”, “the righteous”, “Israelites” and
“sufferers” by comparison seem to be more illogical. Here again you can make
a distinction according to the origin of the words. “(Natty) Dread”,
“Bongoman” and “Congoman” originally had a negative context. The first
one developed from the term “Dreadlock” that Non-Rastafarians invented when
the first Rastafarians let their hair grow and mat. It was a very new style that
looked so strange for some people that it frightened them. Later, “Dread”
was used by the Rastafarians themselves as a positive word for men who wear
dreadlocks. In the last years it has again chanced its meaning, because a lot of
DJs use it to describe the Gigolos or Playboys at the Jamaican beaches.
“Bongoman” and “Congoman” normally words that were associated with
uneducated and stupid, were upvalued with the new value of an African background
like in “Keep your Dread” by Big Youth who addresses the “Black People”
and advises them “Keep your dread natty know your culture. Keep your dread
natty know yourself now (...) Dread lock dread natty dread natty congo.”15 The
other expressions: “the righteous”, “Israelites” and “sufferers”
reveal more a social classification, that means “a consciousness of the
polarity of class interests.”16 For the Rastafarians there are just two
categories of class: the society and the oppressed, i.e. themselves. These
categories that are also used by the singers can be “society” and sufferers”,
“the
righteous” and “the wicked”, “the pope” and “Rastafari”, “you”
and “me”, “them” and “us” or “Babylonians” and “Israelites”.