Tangatanga followers can learn lessons from listening to reggae

To Deputy President William Ruto, BBI is like coronavirus. A deadly plague. Sadly, he drags in reggae into his fear. That is unfortunate. Wouldn’t it be nice if he could learn to appreciate reggae music? He may just come to love it, like many self-declared hustlers do. Granted, his loathing is because reggae has somehow got entangled with the BBI rallies. The mix-up is incidental and says more about our politics than it does about the great genre of music called reggae.

I am not a particularly ardent fan of the genre, but I readily acknowledge its tremendous cultural influence globally. Certainly there are many good ways an engagement with reggae can improve Ruto as a person and broaden his perspectives beyond the odd PhD in something botanical he is supposed to have earned from the University of Nairobi.

Awareness of reggae culture can make him better understand the place of critical social and political commentary in society, an area in which reggae artistes excel. Ruto has proven to have a particularly thin skin in this aspect. His unruly Twitter posts and their crude pugnacity especially towards the media expose this intolerance nearly every day. Reggae music is the type that is socially and politically conscious. Reggae enthusiasts hail it as “a voice against injustice, a voice of resistance, redemption, love and humanity.” It is a music with a conscience. There is a lot to learn there for self-styled chicken hustlers like the DP.

The ‘Nobody Can Stop Reggae’ chant heard at BBI rallies is from the title of a hit song by the late South African reggae star Lucky Dube. In reply, an agitated Ruto has said several times that he will stop the reggae. I understand his fright, as all those who remember the 2002 anti-Kanu “We Are Unbwogable” anthem do. Of course, what the DP means he will stop is not Dube’s song but the political mobilisation being done using it. Frankly, I don’t see how he can stop anything. Using what power? It’s tough enough already wrestling with a DCI he is helpless to restrain. The DP recently asserted Kenya was a God-fearing nation and not a place for reggae, bhang smokers and witchcraft mongers. We know who he likes to associate with witchcraft. But pause a minute on the bhang bit, and ask yourself what exactly he meant there. Mmmm. And some people still believe Jubilee will survive intact? Impossible.

 The DP may wish to know that reggae is not Godless. Far from it. It is closely connected to Rastafarianism, a religious-cum-social movement with roots in Jamaica. Indeed, reggae has a lot to say about religion and faith in general, as well as the hypocrisy and fakery of today’s so-called believers. Listen for instance to the music of Max Romeo (alias the Son of Sellasie), a contemporary Jamaican reggae musician. Focus specifically on the lyrics of one of his most famous songs, “Stealing In The Name of Jah (God).” Please, dear reader, just Google those lyrics yourself. I don’t want to personalise anything.

The fusion with Rastafarianism explains reggae’s distinctive spirituality. True Rastafarians shun materialism and greed. They don’t touch alcohol or eat meat. They believe in Pan-Africanism and the unity of all black people. Hence the constant, Biblically-inspired references in reggae and Rastafarianism to Babylon and Zion. Babylon is the place of captivity and exile, where the Black diaspora presently remains chained, awaiting freedom and the symbolic return to Zion, or Mother Africa. This is the vocabulary of liberation, of revolution, of a return to authenticity, and not merely a physical coming-home-to-Africa Exodus. Raila Odinga’s political rhetoric often has similar Biblical overtones when he talks of Canaan, his personal Promised Land after years in the political backwoods. I must confess to be in the dark regarding the exact nature of Ruto’s religiosity, other than his frequent, cash-laden forays to churches to “invest in heaven.”

The image of reggae folk as pot-smoking, dreadlocked ruffians is a caricature. Alas, this seems to be the picture Ruto prefers to see. A puff of marijuana, which after all many countries are legalising, is mild in comparison to the dubious dealings of misfits who reggae artistes and Rastafarians despise: thieves, fraudsters, murderers, crooks, smugglers, cartels, scammers and racketeers of all sorts. Never mind ‘gangsta’ rap musicians are the ones known for taking the really hard drugs like crack cocaine. In Rastafarian tradition, marijuana is used religiously and medicinally, in prayer and meditation, to achieve greater spiritual insight into life “and the universe.” No need to take loot to ‘Jah’. He doesn’t need it.

Let me end with a quote from reggae’s late global icon Bob Marley: “Don’t gain the world and lose your soul. Wisdom is better than silver and gold.”