Reggae, Rastafari, and the Rhetoric of Social Control

When did the Rastafarian fighting white colonial power become the smiling Rastafarian spreading beach towels for American tourists?

Drawing on research in social movement theory and protest music, Reggae, Rastafari, and the Rhetoric of Social Control 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.

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.

This book attempts to explain how the Jamaican establishment's strategies of social control influenced the evolutionary direction of both t