"World-a-Riddim" : different rhythm types and functions globally

It seems cool to say – as a percussionist – that few instrumentalists in this modern world are as intensely “multicultural” as a percussionist/percussion player. Potentially, but even to a point inevitably.

As a sweeping, more sociopolitical,statement one can even claim that “percussionists are the only true multiculturalists” in this world.. but that is perhaps too sweeping for now..

The exceptions are those deeply specialized in e.g. purely Indian instruments (tabla) to fit in India’s musical structures, or similar all too mono-cultural percussionists in Arabic (e.g. with darbuka’s), Japanese (e.g. taiko’s), or other specific cultures, even within percussion-rich Africa.

Especially in the Western world, most percussionists in modern “pop”, “rock”, and world music, however, combine instruments from the Americas – often the African Diaspora (Afro-Brazil, Afro-Cuba) -, with African, Middle Eastern, European, or modern Western additions.

Some of these Western modern instruments are based on African or Latin American models, but either way new sounds arose, such as the metal “flexatone”, with some “singing saw” characteristics (known historically a bit in Slavic folk music), combined in sets of many percussion players with African or Afro-Cuban drums (djembe, conga’s), woodblocks, bells (found both in Africa and Asia), the relatively more European tambourines, originally Amerindian “scrapers” , or even Spanish castanets.

Like I said, a truly multicultural mix, this “tool kit” of percussionists in many “pop” or “world” music bands..

THE FUNCTION OF RHYTHM

That is: instrument-wise. It is also a fact, however, that musical “rhythm” is not uniformly defined across cultures worldwide: regarding its function in music in different cultures.

Drums and rhythm play a role in very different cultures, but are just the “tools” used according to different values and with different goals throughout world cultures.

One used to Afro-American and African percussion – like myself – can often not get into Indian “rhythms”, Japanese, or Arabic “rhythms” that easily. Even when you are musically and rhythmically flexible and adaptive – which I claim to be – dancing to it does not go as automatic as to Yoruba, Reggae, or Samba music.

In fact, some music with drums and “rhythms” in some specific cultures are not even meant to dance to (other “social”, artistic, ritual, or narrative functions). Certainly not as is common in African-based rhythms – “dance music” , or European music which we are used to. In a part of European music “rhythm” - or eventually present percussion/drums - is not even that dance-oriented, but rather serving as a harmonic base.

I myself as a percussionist am instrument-wise certainly very multicultural, rhythm-wise admittedly less. I enjoyed - selectively – some Asian, Middle Eastern, or other non-Afro – rhythms in music, some even felt a bit danceable to me, but Afro-American and African swing and polyrhythm, or clave-based music, remains more my “thing”, rhythmically. My main love.

I am a Reggae fan, and a nice thing about Reggae is that it mixes “straight rhythm”, clave, and polyrhythm aspects, with Swing, as known from Jazz and Blues. In that sense it is rhythmically between Afro-Cuban music and Afro-US music (Jazz, R&B, etc.). A good African Diaspora mix.

That is my personal rhythmical world and taste, and it is a personal trajectory, based on own choices and tastes.

OTHER MUSICAL CULTURES: SUMMARIZED

I do wonder, though, how my “world-a-riddim” (ha!) compares to the other ones I mentioned. Music follows culture, so the function of rhythm in a culture’s music reflects that culture.

In this sense “keywords” can be useful. Are there short ways to describe rhythm’s functions in different cultures?

Through Google, AI (a google plus, really), Wikipedia, and some paper sources, I could derive these keywords/short characterizations, related to some representative cultural “zones” in this world..

It is of course terribly simplified, and not all existing musical cultures are mentioned, but it is about main trends.

Africa: polyrhythm (simultaneous, interlocking rhythms) and timeline (clave). Cross rhythms too. Layered vertically.

India: cyclical time and tala (story and language based). Monophonic, linear and mathematical. Horizontal (differing from “vertical”, layered rhythm building in African music).

Western classical music: rhythm subdued to melody and harmony, later more metric flexibility and syncopation.

Celtic music: rhythm built into melodic playing (mixed), also on nonpercussive instruments (like a fiddle, pipe, or harp). Often story based. Flowing, “floating” feel, “rolling” and linear, more “ornamented” than e.g. Germanic music, and also more syncopation. Frame drum use common.

Germanic music: strict, symmetrical meters, strong first downbeat: “marching” and Waltz as archetypes. Mathematically precise, tight on-beat rhythms.

Slavic music: asymmetrical and less strict than Germanic music, some syncopation.

Arabic music: cyclical rhythmic modes, as a structural but looping skeleton, flexible to allow ornamentation. Monorhythmic. Follows melody.

Turkish music (incl. Balkan): sophisticated rhythm cycles, irregular and asymmetric meters “limping” effect), additive meters (bouncing, "swing" effect). Further similarities with Arabic rhythm cycles.

Indonesian music: colotomic structure (gamelan): architecturally precise. Gongs/metal dominant, skinned drums secondary.

Chinese music: not a metronomic rhythm but an elastic framework. Empty space valued. Following energy flow.”Breath”-based. Slight heterophony. Mostly linear, but fluid.

Japanese music: also breath-based – not metronomic -, and gives likewise importance to empty space “ the rhythmic power of silence”. Aids in story-telling and community.

Tibetan music: paces meditation, monorhythmic, non-metric rhythm , but instead - again – breath governed, and elastic. Rhythm aims at stabilizing the mind, and an inward focus though slow repetitive beats. No loops or cycles, but guiding rituals or texts.

Amerindian (or: Shamanic) music: monorhythm, “heartbeat” of nature-based, spiritual functions. Deep bass drum sounds.

Inuit music: asymmetric meter, story-based. Voice-drum interactions. Rim-hit frame drums common, differing from “deep bass” sounds of Amerindians in e.g. Bolivia.

Flamenco (Spanish) music: asymmetric elements / limitedly metered but freer, 12-beat rhythmic cycles. Nonwestern in most rhythmic aspects, including frequent syncopation, and even polyrhythm. Flamenco is rhythmically exceptional within Europe, due to different cultural influences (Roma/Indian, Moorish, African), mixed in with local Andalusian folk music.

STEREOTYPES BUT NUANCED

All this seems to more or less confirm stereotypes (Germanic music tight and “marching” like, complex story-based in India, deep heartbeat among Amerindians, “floating/flowing” Celtic sounds, meditative in Tibet and China, “groove” and polyrhythm-based in Africa), but also shows nuances. Syncopation is not only limited to Africa, for instance.

In several cultures rhythm follows a horizontal, textual “story” or “melody” of some sort (Asia and Europe), but not everywhere. Rhythm is indeed the least subdued to melody or harmony in African music: another stereotype confirmed, albeit not an offensive one (in my opinion). I am of the opinion that words/language/texts are after all also tools to lie and mislead. Their primacy over natural “rhythm” therefore suspicious.

This summary also shows how Japanese culture is partly influenced or derived from older Chinese culture, sharing cultural values of “breath” and “empty space”, in line with spiritual ideas around energy flows, as found in Buddhism (see Tibetan music), Taoism, and Shintoism.

Complicated rhythm structures in India also support ancient cultural “stories” and principles, in this case from Hinduism, showing in drums imitating spoken language.

In its syncopation, “later” Western music (pop, “rock”) certainly underwent African and Afro-American influences (via Blues, Jazz, etc.).

Logically, as part of music, rhythm follows and supports cultural specific structures and goals. In many cultures these align with local spirituality and even “sacred” or “holy” music, albeit with secular versions.

SIMPLIFIED DINSTINCTION

Looking at rhythm’s function in traditional music world wide, this main, oft-repeated – simplified – distinction bears some truth: Europe emphasizes harmony in music, Asia melody, and Africa rhythm.

Still simplified, and all music have harmonic, melodic and, rhythmic aspects, but in essence it holds: in by themselves also differing Asian music cultures (Arabic, Chinese, Indian, a.o.), rhythm almost always supports “melody” or “stories/texts” (textual stories of melodies), while in Europe indeed rhythm often tended to support “harmony”, as noticeable in “classical” music (Bach, Chopin, Tchaikovsky, etc.), though in older folk traditions (Celtic, Germanic, Slavic, Basque), supporting the stories or “melodies” also was a function of rhythm.

Polyrhythms as meant to dance to, ritually or not, remain typically and originally African. Of course, however, lyrics and singing also play a role in African music, even a guiding one, but often also rhythmically-oriented (call-and-response), seldom supporting non-rhythm as in other cultures.

SACRILEGE?

I am not the type of guy who plays the “sacrilege” card too soon, though I have my own, largely Rastafari-based spiritual views. Musicians and artists furthermore need to think creative and free to add value. That humans are born to be free, and think free, is after all also my (spiritual?) opinion.

In addition to this, one must beware of no selectiveness or bias regarding this: all too easy use, distortion, or appropriation of (even spiritual) African musical principles seems more tolerated in the West for even commercial music producers, than if e.g. non-initiates play Indian or other Asian instruments that in many minds connect more to “pure” or “sacred” ancient religions (Hindusim and Buddhism), implicitly to be respected more.

Not the same degree of “respect”, let’s just say, painfully reflecting the disparaging historical treatment of equally ancient African culture in colonial history, The same reason that India – while once a British colony – kept it’s Hindu-based culture, whereas Igbo , Yoruba, - also colonized by the British – largely “Christianized”, or elsewhere “Arabicized”/ Islamicized.. More trampled upon.

Even among African descendants in the African Diaspora – and even within the Afro-centric Rastafari movement - , there exist disparaging view of Vodou and related “spirit invoking” or “ancestor spirits” veneration in Africa.

In Central Africa (around the Congo region), ancestor worship has long been traditionally important, whereas in the Nigeria-Benin-Ghana region specific deities/spirits – connected with e.g. nature, like rivers, thunder (Shango, Yemayá, etc.) - “mounting” believers, long was. All this “spirit possession” occurs through rhythm and drumming patterns, with trance-like effects, and while dancing.

The relative importance and primacy of rhythm and drums in sub-Saharan Africa relates to these faiths.

Christianity and Islam tried to limit that, but African percussion found a way to survive, now more secularly. Think of the Djembe drumming culture and circles in nominally Islamic areas like Mali, Guinea, Senegambia, Burkina Faso, and around

This secular “djembe” drumming gained even international popularity, mostly without a proscribed spiritual goal other than “community” or “musical bliss”, though rhythmic patterns played might derive originally from ritual or “religious” celebrations in Mande cultures, such as male circumcision, initiation, etc. They became secular, though.

REGGAE PERCUSSION AND RASTAFARI

Opinions among Reggae percussionsists in Jamaica differ. These tend to be Rastafari-adherents, where a Biblical/Protestant influence (via British colonialism) still made some condemn African Vodou and related “spirit possession” faiths in Jamaica (Obeah, Pocomania), as devilish and divisive. “Obeah” and Vodou are said in some Reggae lyrics to use their “science” mainly to sabotage/attack enemies, and put wicked spells against their brothers and sisters.

Some Rastas, like Mutabaruka, however deplore this as an unfortunate Western/colonial remnant – once meant to disparage and destroy the African heritage – still within the otherwise Afro-centric Rastafari movement, that chose to be Bible-based.

Indeed, I have researched a period more deeply Vodou, Santería, Myal, Obeah, etc…, and such African “spirit possession” faiths, and their tenets and practices. I concluded it is more about “harmony”, “community”, and “healing” – i.e. the “good” – than wicked tricks and spells against people as the European stereotype indoctrinated people with.

Good and bad/evil are more clearly formulated and distinguished in text-based Christianity and the Bible (and the Quran), which might attract believers wanting to improve the(ir) world and take a clear moral stance, but a lot of that is hypocrisy and hidden power play, as the “conquering” religions Christianity, Islam,..clearly showed with their history of enslavement and second-class citizenships for nonbelievers or, well, women.

Even with this condemning of Vodou by some Rasta percussionists, they still admit that they draw on Vodou, Pocomania, Kumina, Burru, Yoruba, drum patterns or notions, when fitting musically in a Roots Reggae context. Repurposing “spirit possession”, and of course “ancestor worship” long common in Congo regions, can be seen metaphorically as honouring/respecting ones African foreparents, knowing their roots n Africa, so important for Rastafari.

This makes “sacrilege” not a very useful term for creative, rhythmic musicians. Rhythm is everywhere, it is life itself, and thus in all humans, enabling each one to express oneself through it. Just like you can get in a “trance” or meditate in quite different ways: sitting down and silent, or dancing/ moving, and singing.

Still, some “sacrilege” or “disrespect” objections were made by rigid critics against free-thinking” world music” instrumentalists who dared for instance to use a Nepalese singing bowl outside of the Buddhist lithurgical context, such as for a jazzy musical piece, or the double-sided Yoruba Bata drums in Cuba, used normally in spiritual contexts, when used in too secular “party” songs (Salsa, Latin). Those “purist” objections will remain, I think.

Rastafari adherents have at least the good argument that Rastafari arose in Jamaica among Afro-Jamaicans as a reconnection with the African roots and values (i.e. via Kumina drumming), as a broader goal “overruling” petty ritualistic considerations.

Rastafari’s Nyabinghi drumming with the characteristic “heartbeat” drum patterns is partly rooted in Congo-based Kumina drumming of Central African descendants in Eastern Jamaica, and Kumina was originally aimed at ancestor spirit invoking. Later it was replaced – or repurposed - by Rastas with Biblically based “chants” aimed at one God/Jah”, on the same drum pattern.

Some flexibility there, with fruitful results in developing Rasta culture. Culture is after all not static, but dynamic. Influenced by different cultures over time. In this case an own “Black” interpretation of the Bible.

FLEXIBILITY

Just like people are flexible too. Percussionists in the Western world, e.g. in Pop or Rock bands (or Soul, Funk, Reggae, Latin, etc.), or part of bands in Europe or the US, cannot escape being multicultural, with almost inevitably African musical elements, mixed with other ones. Standard percussion sets include Afro-Cuban instruments (conga’s, guiro, bongo), and often also African and Afro-Brazilian ones, along with Asian influences or modern factory variants, with often Afro-Latin models: examples are the now metal Cabasa shaker, based on the traditional beaded Shekere, or the Vibraslap rattle, based on the older (e.g. Peruvian) “donkey jaw”. All in all an intriguing variation of instruments, with own histories

On the other hand: many “pop” or Rock songs in Western music with standard structures (chorus-verses, bridge) are also “stories, more or less derived from Western poetic and prosaic traditions, and rhythm supports these, somewhat reminding of rhythm’s function in Asian traditions (Indian, Arabic, Chinese): supporting main melodies and stories, with timed sounds. Additionally, it also must fit a European harmony structure.

This is the musical playground, wherein it’s fun and inspiring to play, according to one’s own preferences: atmospheric, repetitive, polyrhythmic, syncopated, straight on the beat or swing. And yes, also “free space” and “breath” – as in Asian/Chinese musical culture – plays a role in this rhythmic work, (tension building, rest, etc).

What I like about Amerindian music (Peru, Bolivia, etc.) is the direct spiritual reference to nature of the drum TOOK-took-took-took, TOOK-took-took-took, like a beating heart and life line. That’s somehow part of many grooves in other genres too.

CONCLUSION

It’s good to focus on the “function of rhythm” for me as percussionist, but also as songwriter which I de facto also am, including vocals and lyrics (see my Youtube Channel).

When making/writing songs, I sometimes follow some Western pop standards (bridge, chorus, verse) and elements, mostly genre-wise Reggae, with (e.g.) often Afro-Cuban or Jazz influences adding syncopation and polyrhythm.

In other compositions of mine I depart from such “modern pop” formats and I try to make more traditional African polyrhythmic music, Salsa songs, Flamenco songs, or in European or Caribbean folk genres, with other musical structures: more asymmetric or unmetered.

Spanish Flamenco came early in my life, as my mother was from Southern Spain, and with a large family there. Some distant family members of my grandmother’s side – surname De Tena - are even Flamenco artists/singers I understood (like Miguel De Tena), so really in that culture. I like some genres and aspects of Flamenco enough to make Flamenco-like songs too, haha. This is aided by the aforementioned summary/description that Flamenco is one of the few European genres that has “polyrhythm” and further a non-Western rhythmic base. More toward “Africa”, let’s say, like Andalusia’s geography.

On the other hand: also Alpine Italian accordion music (my father was from Northern Italy), North African, or French chansons, grabbed my interest for periods.

That shows that I like to experiment with different global rhythms, even straying quite far outside my relative favourite African or African Diaspora genres (Reggae, Rumba, Son, Funk, African genres). Hoping to also find beauty in them.

That’s what an open mind – also a “musical open mind” - is: wanting to see beauty everywhere. Wanting to see possibility and inspiration everywhere.

Eventually, despite this, – usually – the “prodigal son returns to his own” to use a Biblical reference, used in also Catholic countries, as my Spanish mother used this expression regularly, for “returning “home”, where you feel in the end most at ease, and in some way “loved”, after curious wanderings.

My percussion playing on jamsessions in clubs (mainly in Amsterdam) can also be seen online, on my Youtube channel, and it also is flexible and “multicultural”, with varying patterns from e.g. Afro-Cuban Rumba and Abakua, Brazilian Samba, African bell patterns, Conga-fied Reggae basslines, Cumbia, Flamenco, but also classical music, “rock” or Pop , folk/Celtic, or Middle Eastern elements, which I try to flexibly add to the songs: usually nice covers of Rock or Funk classics.

I use thus a variety of multicultural, modern and traditional percussion instruments, but also adapt to the different functions of rhythm in Pop or Rock, while adding syncopation and counter-rhythms, without distracting from the main basic songs. This can be also “ornamentation” known in Celtic, Arabic, and Flamenco music rhythms, but also “vertically layered” on top of as well as interlocking with the main bass-drum beat, as in polyrhythmic sub-Saharan African music, hopefully to good “driving” effect.

This all is the multicultural and groovy fun of it.

Recognizing Sly's Style

As recently the well-known and influential Jamaican Reggae drummer Sly Dunbar deceased (26th of January, 2026), a tribute seems fitting. Especially on this blog of mine, where I earlier discussed musicians and artists at that time just passed away.

Sly Dunbar (henceforth: Sly) died for (Western) common standards quite young at 73 years of age, yet he reached an older age than another known Reggae drummer Lincoln “Style” Scott, dying at only 58 (in 2015). Or of Sly’s bass-playing steady companion Robbie Shakespeare, dying in December 2021, at the age of 68.

Always sad when a person passes away, influential on some people’s or even many people’s lives. The latter is the case with Sly Dunbar, often dubbed as one of the “architects” of Reggae, helping to shape it. The sadness of mourning relates to the previous feeling of “taking someone for granted”, while appreciating the presence as living among us.

Death, especially when unexpected and relatively young, always comes as a negative interruption. People who had close and more distant (professional) relationships with Sly, in these days close after his passing, have written several tributes, obituaries, or biographies, emphasizing his importance for Reggae, and sad loss.

PROLIFIC

Sly was in fact one of the most times recorded Reggae musicians, contributing with drums to many, some say around 200.000(!) Reggae songs, especially since the later 1970s, also as producer, such as for Black Uhuru and Ini Kamoze. As drummer, Sly thus played drums on countless songs by all the big names in Reggae: Gregory Isaacs, Mighty Diamonds, Wailing Souls, Junior Delgado, Dennis Brown, Black Uhuru, Gladiators, Peter Tosh, Viceroys.. too many to mention, and spread all over Reggae, maybe less with bands or artists having their own “steady” drummer (as Carlton Barrett was for Bob Marley, Burning Spear had long another steady drummer), or worked more with session bands like the Roots Radics - with other (also great) session drummers, like Style Scott, or with Santa Davis, or Leroy “Horsemouth” Wallace.

These other drummers tend to have an own, mostly recognizable style, I find. Somewhat generalizing: Carlton Barrett perfected the smooth “one drop” rhythm with the Wailers, Santa Davis included African and Latin flourishes in his drumming, Style Scott hit the snare hard and played “metronomic”, while Horsemouth included relatively many (drum) side and rim(click) additions .

I find a specific “own” style of Sly, however at first more difficult to recognize. He was certainly influential, and had his own approach and style, yet it was often “subtly” there. Perhaps because he was so prolific and spread throughout Reggae, Sly’s style became more difficult to distinguish, having partly shaped Reggae, after all.

CHANNEL ONE

Of course, Sly was also important for my personal experience of Reggae, even for my developing taste, also because he was very prolific as session drummer as well, especially for the Channel One label since around 1975, one that I am more or less a fan of. It had that early “Rockers” sound, and the “clarity” of the “per instrument” sound gave another feel than (the also great) Studio One recordings, having a more amalgamated, “drowned” sound due to older technology.

Older, yet prestigious, as Studio One received the equipment from the famed Motown label in the US. Cool, but several instruments had to be recorded at the same time at Studio One, at the cost of specific clarity of each instrument, not least the drum. At Channel One instruments began to be recorded separately, and clearer sounding. It was since then also that the snare accent on the 3 (of 4/4) became clearer.

Channel One started in the Later 1970s, around the time Sly began drumming for recordings, having recorded before already with e.g. Niney Holness and Bunny Lee. Before this, he played already with bass player Robbie Shakespeare in the “club circuit”, and in tourist areas in Jamaica. His earliest recording was, by the way, for Lee Perry’s Upsetters label when he was only about 12, recommended to Perry by Ansel Collins.

Not much use repeating here what’s said on his Wikipedia page, or elsewhere and in recent tributes. I only will select in this post just some aspect of Sly’s musical biography with regard to the “recognizability” of his drumming style. Preferably aspects not well-known to the wider public, from more obscure or specialized sources.

On later Channel One recordings, Sly became quite prominent within that clarity of sound, since the Late 1970s. His drumming style was deemed innovative, experimental, but also – in a sense – “commanding”, shaping the song along the vocal part. Sly said in an interview for the ‘Modern Drummer’ magazine (August 2012) that beyond just playing drums, he was also “performing”, while listening to the whole song.

ROCKERS

Important additions by Sly contributed – quite known – to the Rockers sound, and derived Steppers sounds: the earliest precursors – with the Rub-a-Dub Style – to early Dancehall music. It added a bass drum on the One of each (4/4) bar, and sometimes on each beat, making it more “militant” or “military”.

From this developed later Dancehall riddims as originally a “faster” Rockers riddim – a higher BPM -, mostly a matter of a speedier tempo, but also accents, notably digital accents in modern Dancehall, thus by-passing live drummers. Still, Sly originally created the Rockers sound largely, with extra bass drum on the One (alongside the standard accent on Three), becoming a period a popular sound, with Gregory Isaacs’ Night Nurse being an example that is best known, though in my opinion many Rockers songs from the period (say, around 1980) are better than that one, even by Isaacs himself.

Sly’s “co-performing” explains something of his drumming style, but what I as said struggle a bit with is: what exactly was Sly’s own drumming style? I enjoyed it, sure, but only sometimes I delved into deep analysis or detailed description of it, often regarding a specific song.

This implies that I find that style hard to recognize. Sly’s drumming seemed however commanding, but also adaptive, to the songs, changing thus accents or styles. That makes his style more difficult to recognize.. at once..

INFLUENCES

Sly named as his influences various drummers, from Philadelphia Soul and other US Black music, to Ska (Ska drummer Lloyd Knibb), other US and Jamaican drummers, yet.. he also studied African music, to learn about shaping a danceable groove. He likes “groove”, Sly said in the 2012 Modern Drummer interview. In this sense, I think this meant that he did not do many (interchanging) fills, which he says in the same interview, choosing to focus on the nuances within the maintained flow. (you dig?, haha).

Another Reggae drummer I paid tribute to on this blog, Style Scott, when he just passed away in February, 2015 (blog post of that month), had some distinct characteristics in his style. What’s interesting, is that Scott learned drumming (partly) by watching/copying Sly’s drumming, as he said in interviews. While Sly said he learned in part from earlier Jamaican drummers, like Lloyd Knibb, Carlton Barret, Santa Davis, a.o. Generation after generation..

Style Scott’s drumming style was very tight and metronomic, with relatively hard hits on the snare, and – as some find – “slower” than other Reggae drummers . Variations on main patterns/grooves were there, certainly, but standing out all the more within his “tight” (and slower) style.

That’s maybe a clear difference with Sly’s style; of course also tight enough, but with more nuances within patterns, and perhaps more flexible than Style Scott’s style. That combination of “tight” and “flexible” fits Reggae well, rooted in both “straight” Central-African rhythms, as of “swing” based US music (Jazz, R&B).

AND ROBBIE

I wrote something about the “Sly and Robbie” sound in a blog post of mine, namely about bass player Robbie Shakespeare’s passing in 2021. I included Sly in this, but focused in that post more on Robbie.

That’s another problem with recognizing Sly’s style: he was most known as part of a well-known “rhythm tandem” with Robbie Shakespeare, often seeming inseparable. They combined well, but also influenced each other, as Robbie’s bass lines were often relatively “melodic” and full, interrelating with Sly’s drum choices.

SYNTH

Sly & Robbie clicked well musically, grew together musically since quite early in their career (meeting in 1972), creating a solid, groovy sound, sometimes slightly funky, over time modernizing the previous Early Rockers era in Jamaican Reggae music (1976-1983), with added synth drums and other “modernities”. Especially in later Sly & Robbie (1982 and later) contributions or productions, such as for Black Uhuru (albums like Chill Out), or their own albums, the synth tom recurred regularly, becoming another typical feature of Sly’s style, distinguishing him with that experimenting from other Jamaican drummers, less using synth drums/sounds. Also the Sly & Robbie-produced (and of course –played) “hit” of sorts, Herbman Hustling by Sugar Minott, - from around 1985 - had these modern, synth aspects, while still recognizable as Sly & Robbie.

The groove was after all always tight and strong, and somewhat commanding, though, modern additions or not.

Therefore, it’s often easy to remember bass lines from Sly and Robbie-played songs, like Ini Kamoze's 1984 song Wings With Me (later transformed into a “sing over” Riddim instrumental Rootsman, such as for Chronixx’s “club hit” Here Comes Trouble), or e.g. England Be Nice. Or on several Black Uhuru songs. Strong steady rhythms from a coordinated bass-drum duo, the Sly & Robbie bass-drum tandem.

Still, Sly’s contribution to that is not easy to discern, but there and influential, both in steady and nuanced aspects of “the groove”.

JAMAICAN REGGAE DRUMMING

Not least important – certainly in Reggae – Sly’s use of the hi-hat and other cymbals should be honorary mentioned as at least helping to define the specific Jamaican Reggae sound, hard to copy abroad. The hi-hat is important in that, alongside the snare or rim accent, but more drummers, even before Sly and at Studio One, had interesting, engaging hi-hat patterns, adding both syncope/polyrhythm and danceability: Winston Grennan, Leroy “Horsemouth” Wallace, Santa Davis, and Carlton Barrett. That was just the Jamaican Reggae drumming “tradition”, you can say, those hi-hat accents.

CRASH CYMBAL

Sly at least continued that Jamaican drumming style, but rather than expanding on it, he “tightened” the hi-hat patterns, sometimes restricted them a bit, but this tighter structure had as goal an important contribution of Sly to Reggae drumming: the crash cymbal, and its use.

Both the hi-hat and crash cymbal are crucial in Reggae drumming, too essential to neglect. Yet, according to some sources, it was Sly who decided to use the crash cymbal "peak/high-point" more effectively, at the end of a cycle, usually signaling the Chorus after it. He normalized this.

Maybe it’s also good to say that Sly not only “performs” the song along with the artist/singer, but also “structures” the song. He drummed “tight”, not in the sense of “metronomic” (applying a bit to Style Scott’s drumming), but rather in the sense of “structure”, orderliness, making a song more appealing throughout, its dramatic development, etcetera.

ABROAD AND BEYOND

The Jamaican drumming style with roles for hi-hat and crash cymbal, besides the drums/toms, is hard to copy abroad. Some at least try, Reggae bands in the Netherlands, Britain, Germany, France, and US, but often in a simplified manner, not per se “bad”, but not of the Jamaican standard, or benchmark. “Textbook lesson” hi-hat triplets are played often by drummers in Europe and US, but as such can become boring throughout a song, and an added “polyrhythm” (in hi-hat variations) can improve the mood. Less stiff, more African. Nicely rounded off at the end of verses, at the right moment, with a Crash cymbal to announce the Chorus the rhythm goes into. Like a “peak” upon possession by some spirit, followed by dancing in a trance, as in some African folk belief traditions.

Clearly, this is an African retention, still practiced in Vodou, Santería, Kumina, and in parts of Africa itself.

Many Rastafari adherents, however, condemn “Vodou”-like religions as backward, or even evil, witchcraft. Sly sympathized with the Rastafari movement, though he did not say much about it, but that’s his right. Anyway, the Rastafari combine a Biblical focus with a focus on Africa, also culturally. “Possession” in the literal sense (Shango, Yemayá, or Papa Legba/Ellegua – as in Santería and Vodou), is only replaced by a metaphorical “possession” now with music and rhythm, but also by a feeling within. The “Soul” of sufferers singing (James Brown defined “soul” as the word “can’t”). In other words: real music.

The drum and rhythm participate in that, as part of Sly’s “co-performing” and “structuring” style.

Somewhere in all this I now wrote, a specific “Sly” style of drumming can be recognized or discerned.

CONCLUDING

All I know is that he drummed on many great Reggae albums and songs I enjoyed, many that I have listened and danced to as Reggae fan. Many, many great songs. It influenced me – when I drummed on my own compositions, for instance – in many ways, I myself don’t fully realize. I practiced (trap) drumming on songs Sly drummed on, that also, though not exclusively.

When I drum a Rockers pattern (e.g. for an own recording), or use the “climactic” crash cymbal for a song, I know it’s part of Sly’s legacy.

That wider, influential legacy – perhaps subtle, yet present –, in shaping Reggae and drumming, - is something to be proud of, significant for all Reggae fans, and what I thank Sly for.

That legacy remains..

Troubled identification with Jamaica in reggae lyrics

Reggae music is of course for some time now a main “export product” of Jamaica, and especially since Bob Marley’s fame put it on the global map, since around the 1970s.

There is however one historical elephant in the room, or maybe an inherent contradiction: Reggae is Afro-Jamaican music, that arose among those who descend from Africans who were brought once forcibly to the island Jamaica, had to work as slaves, and remained in poverty on that island. There is thus a problematic identification with the nation of residence.

The same applies of course to all other Black music genres in the African Diaspora, from the US, to Cuba, Trinidad, Colombia, Brazil, and other former colonies, later becoming known for internationalized music. About 70% of what we call “Salsa” is in fact based on Afro-Cuban musical structures – with clear Congo retentions -, to which in New York were added influences, often also from the African Diaspora (Dominican Merengue or Afro Puerto Rican Bomba). Calypso (Trinidad), Blues (US), Samba (Brazil): also all created by descendants of Africans, in a place where they were brought by force.

This is an existential problem, shared throughout the African Diaspora, yet in different ways. Even if, say, countries like Trinidad, Brazil, or Cuba, seem celebrated proudly in lyrics as one’s home, the tragic undertone remains somehow there. Unease remains.

TRAUMA

That tragic undertone is the trauma. In essence, “trauma” can be defined as “losing control” of the situation, and in a sense “inaptitude”. One’s people did not choose to make Jamaica their home, but were pressured to do so, with a lot of abuse. Music helps to remind of the African roots, so that the tree growing can bear good fruits, even in alien soil, to quote Marcus Garvey (more or less).

The human rights abuses, violence, and deaths that came with trans-Atlantic slave trade and plantation slavery, added to the existential problem. After deracination, came dehumanization, and marginalization. Music genres developed among poor Black people answered that, contrasted that with roots, humanity, and self-expression.

REPATRIATION

This existential problem is shared throughout the African Diaspora, but in the case of Jamaica, that trauma of deracination or displacement, has been answered more manifestly with the Garvey movement – Back to Africa -, and the related Rastafari movement, since the 1930s.

Jamaica was and is for most Garveyites and Rastafarians not the ideal place for African-Jamaicans, who should according to them repatriate to Africa. They belong there. The sensed urgency of this repatriation might however differ per person.

While Marcus Garvey attempted in earnest to set up a steamship line to bring people back to Africa – the Black Star Liner – in the US after 1917, it was sabotaged and eventually ill-fated. More sabotage than mere “bad management”, as some claimed it to be.

Within the Rastafari movement, repatriation remained a goal, that seemed somewhat “stalled”. Poorer early (Rastafari-adhering) Reggae artists could simply not travel, whereas later Reggae artists making some money, maintained a lot of loyalties within their island of birth, Jamaica, or migration destinations (US, Canada, Britain). Only a few Reggae artists actually made repatriation efforts to Africa as such, some moving (partly) to African countries: Rita Marley being a known example in Ghana, while other Reggae artists bought land and property in parts of Africa (e.g. Sizzla).

This “back to Africa” focus of the Garvey movement and Rastafari is the most outspoken contrast to the initial trauma of forced displacement: (re)taking control of one’s lot again, as solution to the trauma. In theory to start with, as hopeful vision and, perhaps, consolation..

Elsewhere in the African Diaspora - outside of Jamaica - the same existential trauma is more implicitly referred to.

In Jamaica itself – after all a racially “majority Black” country - , some recent voices call for “Africanizing Jamaica”, instead of the unrealistic – or at least seemingly impractical – repatriation of Africans back to Africa. This cultural Africanization was however already happening all along, and at most will entail some policy changes in the higher circles of society, often more symbolic than anything else. The majority view among Rastafari adherents in Jamaica seem to still be repatriation, returning to the African homeland.

REGGAE LYRICS

Of course, Reggae music has been strongly influenced by the Rastafari movement, especially Roots Reggae (old and new), evident in lyrics, with a maintained Back To Africa focus, real or symbolic.

It seemed to me interesting, therefore, to study how (especially) Rastafari-adhering Reggae artists discuss their island of birth, Jamaica. Is there some sensed connection or sense of belonging with Jamaica?, or is the message that one is essentially just “stuck” there, still trying to make the best of it, while thinking of ancestral Africa?

With the recent hurricane called Melissa in 2025, causing destruction in parts of Jamaica, the sense of community and connection with the island as location was again put to the fore (and test), as rebuilding was required.

Rebuilding a Jamaica where you never chose to be in the first place, but had been made into home, also by your own direct ancestors.

The history of slavery is recalled a lot in Reggae lyrics, wherein Jamaica figures as “plantation island” where Africans taken from Africa lived in slavery, and later “ghetto island” where Africans lived in poverty. Jamaica forms part of larger "Babylon" (the corrupt Western world) in many Reggae lyrics. Of course this is all from the poor people’s perspective, excluded from high society.. or even middle-class society: the sufferers and ghetto dwellers, creating Reggae.

Other lyrics - dealing with current events, or later epochs – showed a broader connection with Jamaica, but mostly also one that is also “tainted”, as inequality between haves and have-nots persists. In many Reggae lyrics, from the 1970s to now, gun violence and crime, are added problems for identification with the island, for ghetto residents, also with a “class” aspect.

This became clear already when Jamaica became independent: especially some well-connected politicians, or Afro-Jamaicans with higher positions, exhibited an opportunistic sense of Jamaican identity and connection, aligned then to one’s position of relative power within the political system. The “Uncle Tom”-effect, you can say, or “Boasy Slave” in Jamaican parlance.

This is also critiqued in Reggae lyrics, such as the patriotic, national slogan, Jamaica had a while: Out Of Many One, in e.g. Mutabaruka’s lyrics. This slogan was copied from the US, but ill-fitted the Jamaican situation, where over 80% of Jamaica is mainly of African descent, so the other of the “many” get a privileged status, it seems. Indeed, minorities like the Chinese, Lebanese, Europeans, and to a lesser degree East Indians, are up to the present economically disproportionately powerful and wealthy within Jamaica.

Reggae lyrics by Rastas, therefore, when dealing with Jamaica include this critique and – one can say – alienation, and dreaming of Africa and Zion. This tragedy at the very least renders great musical art: as James Brown once said “soul” is the word “can’t”.. and Reggae Got Soul, as songs by Toots & the Maytals and later Fantan Mojah are titled.

CULTURE

“Celebrating Jamaicanness” – the other extreme - is found less in Roots Reggae lyrics, but is not absent, even vowing “never to leave it” songs by Eric Donaldson, Admiral Bailey, a.o.). Yet, even among Rastas, as a “cultural” rather than a “political” nation, Jamaica is appreciated: music, food, daily customs, family and friends, specific drinks, parties, specific towns/areas, natural landscapes, but also Jamaica as birthplace of cultural movements with global impact (Garvey, Rastafari, Reggae, a.o.) putting small Jamaica on the map, offering some sense of pride.

Even Sizzla is quite positive about developments – or at least freedoms – within Jamaica on his song In Jamaica.

The quite recent “club hit” The Voices Of Sweet Jamaica at the celebration of 50 years independence of Jamaica from British rule, in 2012, also celebrated food, natural beauty, and culture.

Chronixx has a nice, nuanced vision on Jamaica in Smile Jamaica, as some other Reggae artistes too (like Tarrus Riley, Etana, Jah Cure, a.o.), including mostly the historical existential unease.

Most of the more “conscious” Reggae lyrics (old and new) tend to emphasize the social problems within Jamaica, at most praising cultural resilience. Jamaica equates an involuntary lot or burden to overcome. It appears as such in lyrics of songs by Morgan Heritage, and earlier Culture, Peter Tosh, Hugh Mundell, Junior Delgado, Twinkle Brothers, Bob Andy, or even Bob Marley, the most internationally well-known Jamaican. This accentuates the problematic, conflictive relation, calling for wanting to go “home” (Africa)..

LATIN AMERICA

It also shows, on the positive side, the relative lack of censorship and free speech in Jamaica, and lacking social pressures, compared to other places in the Americas, where Africans ended up, and have less channels to express grievances, than in Jamaica. These grievances and inequalities are certainly there in places like Cuba, Colombia, the Dominican Republic, and Brazil, where – as also documentaries by Henry Louis Gosset jr. (Blacks in Latin America) showed - , Blacks/African descendants remained on the lower rungs of society, among the poorest.

In dictatorships like Cuba, this even caused some censorship problems and persecution problems of Afro-Cuban artists with direct criticism in the lyrics on the regime or inequality. Some artists in Latin America, like Cuban rappers, resorted therefore to more covert lyrics and “code words”, to express grievances, when questioning that myth of “racial, mixed democracy”. This also applies in Brazil, being the country outside of Africa with most people of African descent, but presenting the world a “mixed, equal” image, to hide actual race-based poverty and discrimination (also in e.g. police killings disproportionately of Afro-Brazilians in Rio de Janeiro).

GOOD AND BAD

Natural beauty in parts of Jamaica – certainly present – is also mentioned in both Reggae lyrics and earlier by Marcus Garvey in his writings on his growing up in rural St Ann. When I visited, I personally also liked the lush, tropical landscapes of parishes of Jamaica, like St Ann (where Marcus Garvey and Bob Marley were born) – more hilly -, and St Thomas – more mountainous – in Eastern Jamaica. I saw beautiful landscapes there.

Crucially, local living or “culture” is celebrated in such Reggae lyrics positive about Jamaica, more than nationalism. Nationalism, like patriotism – as the –“ism” ending suggests – serves often “politics and (economic) power” goals from élites, and thus top-down. It might influence those lower in the hierarchy, but remains partly artificial.

Culture is by contrast from the bottom-up, as folk culture is what you get when common people are left alone, to their own devices.

You don’t celebrate adversity, but how you “overcame” it, simply said.

Tellingly, the artist Ijahman Levi called Jamaica his “culture country”, where Marcus Garvey was from.

Burning Spear has a song “Land Of My Birth” (“I love you..”), and on his latest album a song called Jamaica (praising its culture), whereas Island In The Sun (rhyming with “fun”), appears in lyrics by group Israel Vibration, and others, quasi-positively, while also some places in Jamaica are described with some mild affection, such as Kingston, Montego Bay (a song by Queen Ifrica), Spanish Town (by Chronixx), or Negril, an affection mostly shaped because of friends or family there.

The mostly Rootical/Rasta group the Itals also have a nice, jolly song about Jamaican style of living and dances.

ALIENATION

The many good Reggae songs, also about this theme of alienation or connection with regard to the nation Jamaica, furthermore go interestingly against the Nazi-doctrine of “Entartete kunst” ..

When the Nazi’s took power in Germany in the 1930s, and turned it into a fascist and racist (Germanic supremacy) dictatorship, it entailed censorship of certain art forms, not fitting the national-socialist party line of Germanic superiority, and being too foreign, non-German, racially impure (made by Jews), or “entartet”, which is the German word for “degenerated”. This art thus deemed was condemned openly then banned, by that regime.

What Reggae – and other music and art in the African Diaspora - proves is in fact the contrary: art being valuable as precisely an expression of alienation and being deracinated, therefore all the more soulful and powerful.

More so than just confirming conservative cultural norms in closed communities, with lack of creativity and innovation, remaining safely on the well-trodden paths, to please the authorities. This occurs when people have not been displaced by outside forces, and remained in the same land as their ancestors, practically since years BC, only with some admixtures. Stagnation sets in those cases inevitably in. More travelling and persecuted groups like Jews or Gypsies had to be more creative with their art, yet those were precisely seen as “undesirables” in Nazi Germany.

To a degree, also more historically “mixed” Mediterranean nations (also culturally) like Spain (with a Moorish past), France, or Italy have this less than dominantly, more mono-ethnic Germanic or Slavic countries elsewhere in Europe, giving some more space for creative artistic periods in Southern Europe. Yet, also Vienna in Austria at the time of Mozart, was more multicultural than the rest of Austria, while also Amsterdam and Antwerp (and London) had long an international, “tolerant” image, enabling innovations, though at first mostly economically motivated, it increased variety and openness.

Jamaica was a British colony, and inherited more the Germanic/Northern European sense of “racial purity” and racial connection to a specific land, that the Spanish colonizers had less.

From the start, as even racist, ruthless colonizing conquerors following Columbus to the Americas, like Pizarro and Cortés, soon accepted racial mixture between Spaniards and present Amerindians, even allowing on occasion the mixed offspring some of the inherited power and material inheritance.

In British colonies, and the US, racial purity, segregation, and strict inequality was however more the norm, whereas societies like Cuba, Brazil, and others boasted earlier a “mixed” identity.

This more “mixed identity” in Latin America, proved on the other hand often however hypocritical in light of actual racial inequalities, - as already mentioned -, that persisted in places like Cuba and Brazil, where people of African descent, especially when darker-skinned, remain among the poorest of all groups, and descendants of Europeans among the most powerful and wealthiest. Up to this day: even the in name progressive and anti-racist Communist Party of Cuba, is mostly disproportionately “lilly-white”, or at least Spanish-looking, in its higher echelons.

Similarly, in Brazil, only very light Mulatto might obtain some political power, further the domain of also “lilly white” (European-descended) people, with only in sports and music (Pele, for instance) some status for Afro-Brazilians, similar to the situation in the US, for that matter.

NATIONALISM

US comedian Roy Wood jr. had an entertaining bit about the “conflicted relations” of African Americans with the US, inhibiting them from writing truly “patriotic” songs about the joy of being from the US, - as some White US artists did -, but instead created the lamenting Blues.

This more or less applies to Jamaica as well, and to elsewhere in the African Diaspora, especially in light of persisting racial inequalities, also in e.g. Colombia. The national projects simply went from colonial to postcolonial projects, any popular input in achieving or fighting for independence soon sidelined. Nationalism became an élite thing in the Americas, much more than in Europe.

Many borders in Europe developed historically in a rather haphazard manner (or through royal interests), hardly ever conscious political projects, though a shared ethnic base and history procured a sensed affiliation, even with political leaders. Italian unification – led by Garibaldi – seemed a project, but covered uncomfortably many regional identities within current Italy, and to a lesser degree also German unification.

Still, a sense of being where one historically belongs is present among most European nationals (and in Asia and Africa), resulting in stability and self-assurance, as well as arrogance.

My personal prediction in Late 2020: that the whole Covid virus ordeal or “scam” (according to opposers of it) impacting societies and limiting usual freedoms globally, but especially in Western countries, starting around March 2020.. this would (I predicted) increase nationalistic tendencies, rather than global rebellion. It is not my genius, but rather my knowledge of history that made me predict this well.

While political leaders in Italy, France, Germany, or elsewhere - both on the Left as on the Right – pay lip service to “patriotism”, their alignment with global élites is also evident, mostly for power and economic reasons.

Some right-wing popular movements or political leaders contest this with sometimes even xenophobic nationalism, and simplistic and generalizing “anti-migration” stances. Not positive, but showing that the “national belonging” is sensed and ancestral, with “outsiders” becoming intruders. Outweighing – harshly – global inequality or shared injustices.

This never developed as such in the Americas, only a bit more in more racially mixed societies like Brazil, Cuba, Colombia, or the Dominican Republic, where nation or a vague “Latino” identity becomes a substitute for uncertainty of identity, almost by necessity. This is not without creativity, and even understandable, but the “depth” of the connection with the nation should not be exaggerated.

I have met Cubans and Colombians of mixed race, knowing more or less of a Spanish ancestor, a Chinese one, and African one, and even where from in China, Spain, or Africa. I met a quite dark-skinned Cuban woman once in Cuba – adhering to Yoruba Santería btw –, who asked me if I have ever been to Asturias, as I was half-Spanish. I answered that my mother was more from the Southwest of Spain (close to Córdoba), and Asturias was rather in the North of Spain, having only visited it once. Apparently one of her ancestors came from there. She was mostly of African descent, though, so mixtures differ.

Anyway, the focus remained in the cases of people with mixed ancestry worldly and international, which in itself helps to keep an open mind, and makes identity less “strict”. Yet also more insecure.

FRICTIONS

While the result of a largely tragic history of inequality and exploitation, this “looser” national identity in the Americas is not without its merits. It avoids “redneck”-like small-mindedness and xenophobia, that even hides behind the “subtle” racism now common in Western Europe, or more open variants of xenophobia in parts of Eastern and Southern Europe.

The cultural friction with the also proud Islamic adherents - present among migrants - caused increased tensions and misunderstandings, as both in England as in the Netherlands – for instance – anti-migration parties – called “racist” by some, e.g. the National Front in Britain, or the Dutch Centrum Democraten, soon shifted their focus from people from the colonies of another race (but at least speaking the language and adapted in some ways), to the increased group of Muslim migrants, increasing in number.

This cultural friction is maybe lamentable, but to a degree universal, as such frictions are also found in mixed American and Caribbean societies, e.g. Guyana. There is then only no connection to "sacred" patriotism for the country, where one’s ancestors are after all not even from, but is more a matter of cultural frictions or irritations.

Reggae lyrics therefore also address the dominant influence of Chinese finance in Jamaica (Kabaka Pyramid in the song Well Done, or Vybz Kartel’s Poor People Land), partly in line with tourism promotion, sideling the local population, benefitting thus less from tourism. Kabaka Pyramid states that politicians “sell out the country” Jamaica, for their own gain.

This happens also in parts of Africa, along with neocolonialism trough the banking system (IMF), seemingly rendering repatriation to Africa as an idealistic, yet unrealistic daydream.

In a very recent song (late 2025), Kabaka Pyramid has a quite positive song about Jamaica as “sweet”, even stating as nowhere better, and its culture.

ONE’S GEOGRAPHICAL ROOTS

One - maybe - can “feel at home” in places where one’s (geographical) roots are not, especially when among one’s own people and family. The lack of a deeper connection need not to inhibit happiness.. or does it?

One may be satisfied somewhere else in the world, even a place nothing to do with their family, yet sense on occasion a lack of purpose, or “tranquility” and “security”. For that reason, most people when arriving in places where their roots lie – especially the first time – tend to sense stronger emotions than they thought, which some even describe as a combination of goose-bumps and tears. Migrants know how this feels, when returning to their native countries.

I recall from my youth that when once driving to our Spanish family for holidays - from the Netherlands where we lived -, my Spanish mother was reading or sleepy when driving through France, in the back of the car my Italian father drove, but that my mother started singing merrily when she knew we crossed the Spanish border. I found that funny – knowing how she was - , but my father mumbled something like “too proud and patriotic, always, those Spaniards”.

I had, however, similar feelings when arriving in Spain after some time, in different epochs of my life: recognizing accents, looks, names, knowing my ancestors lived there, gave me a special feeling of “calm”. I missed that growing up in the Netherlands. Afro-Americans – even mixed-raced ones - visiting for the first time Africa, have that even stronger, often with overwhelming yet satisfying emotions. There was after all a real trauma to resolve, based on slavery and forced displacement, lacking even the semi-voluntary aspect of migration.

One can be happy without that actual connection with one’s geographical roots, I imagine, yet to degrees, perhaps missing a dimension to make it perfect. On the other hand, humans have always travelled and migrated, so that is also humanity and fulfillment of another kind. Traveling, but then “back home” – or at least the promise of it , and totally by free will! - seems even more satisfying and consoling, as the Jamaican and Rastafari cases show. It helps heal the historical trauma.

Africa as home remains also in modern Roots Reggae lyrics, therefore. In some parts of Africa, the Islam is also quite dominantly present, or strict Christianity, not necessarily welcoming of a Rastafari people “influx” from the Caribbean. Luckily, some African countries, often heralded as “Zion”, and the main place of return for Rasta’s, like Ethiopia or even Ghana, have showed some tolerance for this migration, and do not know so much religious (Islamic or Christian) extremism, allowing tolerance. Ethiopia's Muslims tend to be relatively "mild" or moderate nowadays, some Ethiopian friends of mine told me.

Still: there are vested interests there, as shown in conflicts in Shashemane land in Ethiopia: a territory emperor Haile Selassie set aside for Africans in the diaspora for settlement, and a group of (Rastafari-adhering) Caribbean migrants indeed settled there. A land conflict with local Oromo people arose there, however, causing some tensions, as there were earlier with Ethiopian Communist and later governments, long (about 40 years!) even withholding Caribbean Rastafari-adherers in Shashamane recognition as national citizens, up to only about 8 years ago.

Still, repatriation as proposed within the Rastafari movement – and still in Reggae lyrics – is in theory not impossible, as the history of mankind shows, sometimes even led by leading “prodigal sons”, wishing to improve their country of origin, as a way to honor ancestors, in some way. It is by itself redemptive of the historical trauma, as I pointed out.

It is therein that I think that the “enduring wisdom” of Marcus Garvey’s “back to Africa” approach, inherited by Rastafari, lies.

IDENTITY

Elsewhere in the African Diaspora, - notably the US - fake, somewhat forced “identity politics” (rigid yet simplistic black-white distinction) has taken this place, with a less clear, often inherently contradictory direction. In Latin America however, African cultural and racial presence is as indicated more often “drowned” in a carnivalesque mix, which may seem pleasant or realistic, but is inherently infantilizing and patronizing as well, especially in less-democratic contexts. The goals seems all too clear to “depoliticize”, and defuse any rebellion.

On the plus side: the latter openness to local mixture makes all rigid, ancestral “national identity” relative and malleable, thereby allowing an open mind and flexibility, and avoiding parochial mindsets, rigid xenophobia or racial thinking, all too common elsewhere. This openness contributed to rich, and fascinating cultures in places like Brazil, Cuba, and elsewhere, including recognizable African retentions.

On the down side: one is more dependent on higher-placed others in a set location and on shaped conditions of inequality and poverty, for lacking another place of one’s own where one actually belongs, and the protection and consolation this provides. This is undeniably an existential need, that is then ignored and denied.

Interestingly, much Reggae expresses Rastafari views (repatriation, Afrocentricity, spirituality), along with serving as the “true, popular newspaper” of local conditions and problems, rather than the mainstream news in most countries, driven eventually by élite, upper-class interests, hidden or not.

Reggae lyrics seem to encompass both these spectrums (African roots and local conditions), in my opinion, even allowing a healthy “open doubting”, which makes one not only more “intellectual”, but I think also more fully human, “realer” as person. It also makes “art” – which includes music - more profound.

The latter might even have attributed to the international appeal of Reggae, since Bob Marley, who had deep lyrics about this, in simple language. Identifiable language and lyrics of a searching, spiritual individual, later found among many more Reggae artists, from Alton Ellis, to Culture, Burning Spear, Dennis Brown, Ijahman Levi, the Mighty Diamonds, Morgan Heritage, Luciano, Sizzla, Bushman, Buju Banton, and countless others. That spiritual searching can also be called “soul”.

Imazigh and Zulu music compared: comparing extreme ends of Africa

I have focussed quite a lot during my life on “African music”. However, this requires specification, a specification I myself avoided to stay open-minded and flexible to learn.

DIASPORA

I specified over time, though. This relates in part to connections within the African Diaspora: the cultural survivals in the Americas. Ghana/Akan retentions in Jamaica, Congo retentions in Cuba, Brazil, Jamaica, and elsewhere, Yoruba retentions in Cuba and Trinidad, Senegambia-Guinea retentions in the US, Fon Ewe/Benin retentions in Haiti, etcetera etcetera.. All this of course living on in Black music genres like Blues, Funk, Reggae, Salsa, Samba, Calypso, Kompa, Merengue, Cumbia, and more.

In reality, in all these former colonies, slaves from different parts of Africa ended up, albeit with different percentages or emphasis.

Apart from the idea of cultural “survival” amid oppression and enslavement/dehumanization, I also liked the resulting cultural expressions that arose in the Caribbean, such as the music, but even beyond that: wider culture, language influences, food, and even spiritual movements, ranging from “nature-, dance-, and spirit-based” – like Vodou, Santería, Kumina – to Christian-based, yet Afro-centric reinterpretations (like Rastafari).

PERCUSSION

Strengthened by my later percussion activities, and by liking Afro-American music genres, I naturally began to study their “roots” in Africa, in Yoruba music, Igbo music, Congo music.. all places where many enslaved Africans in the West came from, leaving thus legacies to differing degrees.

I found that “Diaspora” connection interesting, triggering my interest. Through the Reggae and Rastafari connection, also Ethiopia and its music began to intrigue me, including the fact that big drums there are played usually within the churches.

I kept my mind open, because as a musical artist (as I see myself), I find all music in principle interesting, especially when “real”.. “Real” means here “from the folk”.

Most of my attention (in Africa), though, received “Forest Africa” (incl. Ghana, Nigeria, Benin, Congo a.o.), as anthropologist Robert Farris-Thompson described it, historically sources for many slaves, and less influenced by Islam than “Sahel” areas North of it.. more purely African, one can say, strongly percussive, and rhythmically intertwined like – indeed – a forest or jungle, and drums being important. I love that.

Yet.. the whole continent of Africa consists of more, and whether and how it differs also interested me more and more.

NORTH AFRICA

Over time, my interest for North Africa increased, but notably the Berber or (better) Imazigh people, whose culture seemed “pleasantly mysterious”, also as survival amid Arab invasions and dominance. The “Sahara desert setting” also attracted me, for some reason (contrast with “humid” and well-organized Netherlands?).

I heard snippets of Imazigh music, here and there, e.g. among Moroccans in the Netherlands, but the intriguing band Tinariwen, a band of Tuaregs from the Algeria/Mali Sahara dessert, mixing Imazigh music “nuff funky” with modern Western influences, or other African influences, really made me more interested in Tuareg and other Imazigh music. As a percussionist I was also interested in traditional musical instruments.

As the Imazigh mainly remain in Northern Africa, more North West (Morocco, Algeria), but with historical presence also in what is now Egypt, an interesting “other” part of Africa – music-wise – would be totally on the other side: namely the far South East of Africa.

ZULU MUSIC

The Zulu people are a Bantu-speaking people of about 12 million people, being the largest ethnicity in especially Eastern parts of the Republic of South Africa (KwaZulu-Natal).

My interest for them began with the anti-Apartheid struggle in my teens, but especially (when I was older) with the Paul Simon album Graceland. I was then already a Reggae fan, but still liked that Paul Simon album, with its groovy mix of US folk and country “feels” with South African musical vibes. Turns out that the musical influences on the album Graceland were mostly from Zulu music.

Still later, active in percussion, I began to wonder what type of percussion and drums were used in Zulu music. They same thing I asked myself about Imazigh music.

Now it’s time to compare these two extreme ends of Africa: “Zulu land” and “Imazigh land”..

Despite obvious differences while on the same continent, are there similarities, thus connecting truly the entire African continent musically?

IMAZIGH MUSIC

The Imazigh are mostly light(er)-skinned, speaking an Afro-Asiatic (Hamitic) language, and mostly Islamicized and Arab-influenced, but with an own pride and desire for cultural survival.

Fun fact: genetic, DNA research on me (and my mother) showed that most probably about 10% of my DNA (and even more of my Spanish mother’s) connect with Imazigh and even Tuareg (!) people in North Africa. Spain’s history is long and varied, with Mediterranean variety, and including nearby Northern Africa, Phoenicians, Carthaginians and Hannibal, and the Moors (many of whom were “Berbers”), besides less documented earlier strait crossings. There is thus even a personal connection in part of my DNA. There is another around 10% “Semitic” DNA in me - this study showed -, it seems too (also explainable). The rest (and most) of my DNA points more predictably at European-based pre-historic peoples like Basques, Veneti/Dinaric (from my NE Italian father’s side), and Celts, but still: I am also originally partly Imazigh/North African, DNA-wise.

This increased my interest, but I had to search a bit, to find specifics on what is Imazigh music (unmixed) really like?, what characterizes it? What percussion do they use?, for instance.

INSTRUMENTS

I soon found out that the Darbuka and Dumbek drums, also known in Northern Africa, are more associated with the Arab and Middle Eastern world. The Bendir frame drum, however, can be associated more with Amazigh culture. The Bendir drum – like a large tambourine without bells, but usually with a string attached to its back -, giving it its resonance – is regularly used as rhythmic time keeper among the various Imazigh groups, despite further differences among them.

Less known, though not absent, are drums of the other kind, like barrel-, goblet-, or bowl-shaped hand drums. The travelling Tuareg people know the Tendé or Tinde drums, made from mortar, with goatskin, interestingly played exclusively by women. Also interesting: it imitates the camel sound, or follow its walking cadence in part.
(see also: https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-africa-63684118)

Men play other types of drum too among the Tuareg, though in part borrowed from elsewhere in Africa (the Mande-region “Djembe”, notably).

While speaking an Imazigh (Hamitic) language, the Tuareg over time mixed with Black Africans more to the South, originally slaves and serfs, also influencing of course culture.

On the “upper”, invading side – on the other hand – also the Arab and Islamic Darbuka/Darbuka drums – known to be used in Mesopotamia and Ancient Egypt - began being used by Imazigh and incorporated.

However, as indicated, the Imazigh – Tuareg and others – have own drums historically. They are less made of wood than in sub-Saharan Africa, due to the desert, Sahara surroundings, and more often of earthenware or mortar.. The goatskin is however a commonality with many other African drums.

A tambourine with bells is also often used in Imazigh music, or in some regions, as are a type of metal castanets, known from Gnawa culture in Southern Morocco. The Gnawa minority descend from (once enslaved) more Southern, dark-skinned Africans, but were influenced by Imazigh/Berbers and Arabs over time. The name “Gnawa” is said to derive from the word for “blacks” in the local Imazigh language (Southern Morocco).

The metal castanets thus can be a Imazigh influence, or – just as probable – a welcome borrowing by Imazigh from the more “polyrhythmic” Gnawa culture.

Crucially, string instruments like a lute, a single-string bow – the latter also played by women -, flutes among some Imazigh groups, and local variations. The northern Kabyle Berbers in Algeria – known as relatively more often “blonde” or European-looking – have a type of mandolin as another string instrument.

CHARACTERISTICS

Don’t let the blonde(r) appearance of some of those Algerian Kabyle Imazigh fool you, though. Kabyle music tends to use several types of drums, besides the “driving” Bendir frame drum and tambourine, and often hand clapping, adding to the syncopation and even aspects of “polyrhythm”. Singing and vocal styles – moreover – often includes typically African call-and-response patterns.

In comparison - after all - to Arab music -, Imazigh music is more polyrhythmic, but differing per region and genre, sometimes being more monorhythmic like Arab/Middle Eastern music.

Whether this is “originally” Imazigh is a bit harder to discern. Especially with nomadic peoples like the Tuareg, and some other more nomadic Imazigh, it was hard to carry along - as nomads - large musical instruments, therefore having to borrow elsewhere, from other cultures, as they travelled along. This is comparable to the Roma and Sinti (“Gypsies”) in Europe, adopting e.g. the Spanish guitar, or Hungarian fiddle.

Some sub-Saharan African influence on Imazigh musical structures is however certainly proven, in a general sense. Tuareg - and generally Imazigh - more to the South, often mixed racially with sub-Saharan (“Black”) Africans, creating subgroups. Yet, even in Northern Algeria there were once African slaves, and not just – as the Right-wing exaggeration goes – European/Christian ones, though these were there too.. there were even Asian captives as well on the Barbary Coast, as the Algerian Coast was called then. Geographically quite close to Spain.

The best-known European captive in that part of Algeria was by the way a Spaniard: Miguel de Cervantes, who later wrote the famous, innovative Don Quixot novel, and who worked as a slave for a few years in Algeria for a local. Recently (speaking September, 2025) a historical study appeared of this period in Cervantes’ life, in a multiracial environment then (NW Algeria region). Interesting, but I digress from this post’s theme..

Anyway, even Kabyle music in the far North of Algeria (and Africa!) thus could have received sub-Saharan influences.

ZULU MUSIC

Zulu music places large drums more in the forefront, notably the Ngoma (a common Bantu word, also known in e.g. Uganda for drum), being large double-sided drums, and a common one-sided smaller drum (called Isighubu), interrelating with it. This already shows the polyrhythmic intention and structures.

There are further several single-string, musical bows among the Zulu, tending to have semi-melodic functions, such as accompanying storytelling.

Musical bows – with one string - are very common in Southern Africa, also in Angola, as the roots of the Brazilian Berimbau bow. Some assume a deeper origin among the original San/Bushmen population of South Africa, known for their small stature, and languages with “clicks”. Bantus mixed with them, resulting in the Xhosa and Zulu cultures. These Bushmen indeed lived as hunters-gatherers, as many now know because of the “international hit movie ‘The Gods Must Be Crazy’.

Vocal and singing patterns in Zulu music are often complex, with interlocking call-and-response but also harmony, adding to a polyrhythmic complexity.

Further, flute and other reed instruments, and later guitars are used in Zulu traditional music. Typically, nonetheless, the drum leads the music, if it’s not only vocal, as in some Zulu genres, with nicely interlocking harmony and polyrhythm, even without instruments. We know that from Paul Simon’s collab with Ladysmith Black Mambazo in the song Homeless.

DANCE

It depends on folk music’s function in both cultures (rituals, context), but largely the traditional music of Imazigh and Zulus alike are dance-oriented. As in fact most folk music of the world.

The driving (Bendir-led or otherwise) rhythms in a lot of traditional Imazigh music, - with syncopatic elements, reminding of the “swing” idea – makes a more African, hypnotizing,and natural way of dancing more easy when compared to e.g. Arab music, or a part of European folk music. Dances comparable to belly dancing, and even hip swaying and rotations, are common at Imazigh dances, despite the Islamic inhibitions regarding “suggestive female movements”.

In the Arab world – by the way – belly dancing occurred, but that was done by female slaves, for their owner/master, often also sex slaves. Islam’s sex segregation directive caused that partly.

The more polyrhythmic nature of traditional Zulu music, make even more complex, acrobatic dance patterns, more the norm among the Zulu.

A noteworthy cultural difference – increasing over time – is the gender separation in North Africa, influenced by Islam, even on “dance” events. In Zulu culture (as in most other Bantu cultures) genders mix on many occasions, creating in addition room for vocal variation in male and female voices. Some Imazigh music and singing has this too, but it decreased over time, due to Islamic cultural norms, as mentioned, sex/gender segregation in social spheres. This became over time generally upheld even in “looser” Islamic countries like Morocco and Algeria, though with differing degrees of strictness.

BACK TO DIASPORA AFRICA

Returning mentally to the parts of Africa I have studied the music already of before (Central and West Africa, “forest Africa”) more extensively, I should be able to note parallels and make (hopefully sensible) comparisons.

Feeling the grooves in Imazigh music reminded me of the “swing” aspect in music from the Sahel area: “Griot Africa”, as Robert Farris-Thompson describes it, often Mande-speaking: Senegambia, Guinea, Southern Mali, Northern Ivory Coast, and Northern Ghana.

Indeed also regions that were partly Islamized, and with historical connections with Imazigh people. In parts of Northern Mali the Tuareg Imazigh tend to live and roam, while South Mali is Black African, Mande-speaking, with a rich “Djembe” (and Kora) culture, for instance.

In several parts of Mali, often at marketplaces, there is interaction between different groups of Malinese from North and South, with people like Tuareg (or “men in blue”) and e.g. Bambara people interrelating.

SWING

The “swing” aspect in Mande/Guinea music, stemming from string-instrument like the Kora, mixed with rhythmic notions of syncope, has clearly echoes in Imazigh music.

Also “string-based”, as even without e.g. a lute, the string at the back of the Bendir frame drum – I have one , by the way – has a “stringy”, humming resonance, adding a “swing”, or shuffle, feel, even when the rest is monorhythmic or straight.

When several drums, percussion instruments, or clapping become involved, Imazigh music even becomes to a degree “polyrhythmic”, closer to sub-Saharan African traditions, but with an own accent, and less “multiple independent rhythms” as in “pure” polyrhythm, but hinting at it with strong syncopation.

INTERLOCKING

Predictably, maybe, Zulu traditional music has much similarity with Bantu music, especially in the Southern half of the African continent, tending strongly toward polyrhythm and rhythmic interrelations shaping the movements, “straighter” interlocking rhythms – with a layered groove - and less a string-based “gliding” feel that mostly characterize Imazigh rhythms. The latter nonetheless knows some rhythmic interplay toward syncope, and “swing”, or even flirting with polyrhythm in some genres.

What I found most interesting to conclude from all this, is that Imazigh music is far more “African” than Arab music, despite the Imazigh lighter skin when compared to sub-Saharan Africans -, and even the occurrence of reddish and blond(ish) hair among some Northern Berbers in parts of Algeria and Morocco, though Imazigh/”Berber” genetics (DNA) are mostly non-European. In turn, this Imazigh DNA ended up in parts of Spain, Portugal, and even in parts of Sardinia and Sicily.. and as I already mentioned, also in my South Spanish mother’s DNA, thus also mine.

Perhaps due to long, historical cohabitation on the African continent with Black Africans, adaptation to the natural environment, or perhaps the retention of “free, dance-focused culture” from pre-Islamic times, there are similarities between Imazigh and Zulu musical cultures. Despite the long distance between them.

Call-and-response is used in singing (and instrumentation) by both Amazigh and Zulu (more complex among the latter), and rhythm drives the music, with some “layers”, making percussion and drums crucial in the music, and adding syncopation to monorhythms. This is originally absent from monorhythmic, string-based Arab music, for instance. In some European folk music, something like “syncope” (around the main beats) is present in some folk genres (parts of Flamenco, some Celtic folk genres, parts of Balkan), but “polyrhythm” as such (independent, simultaneous rhythms interlocking), as well as “call-and-response” in the strict sense, are originally absent in European folk music, or in Arab music. That's African.

MAIN CONCLUSION

This I can conclude from this comparison between musical cultures of two indigenous people on extreme ends of Africa (NW Africa/Maghreb, and Eastern South Africa)..

Imazigh are much more culturally African than Arabs, which shows in the music, as well as in the greater role of women in their societies, though this was limited with increased Islamic strictness. The Imazigh identity is, however, still upheld among especially many Moroccans and Algerians as counterpoint to the dominant Arabs (having mixed also with Imazigh) risking a second-class position for the after all original inhabitants the Imazigh, even in (originally) “Imazigh” countries Morocco and Algeria. Many mix that resistance and asserted Imazigh identity, somewhat uneasy with a simultaneous Islamic identity as faith.

That spirit or resistance through identity is also shared with the Zulu in South Africa, after all having been also colonized by Europeans, and later also made second-class citizens and even near-dehumanized in their own country, during the White Apartheid regime (up to 1990).

That spirit gives both their music more “soul”. It also seemed to continue in the more modern “pop” styles that developed later in both areas: Raï in Algeria (Oran) – that received Imazigh influences -, and e.g. the Zulu-influenced Maskandi genre in South Africa, and in the work of several current artists.

NOI, Garvey, and beyond

Funny how things go..

As I got into Reggae music around my 11th year, and since then learned more about the associated Jamaican culture, “Black Power” as such I first encountered in Marcus Garvey and Reggae lyrics.

Yet, around the same time (Late 1980s), more US influence came through television and mass media, in the Netherlands. Hearing about Malcolm X, the Nation of Islam, Minister Farrakhan, and movements where Rappers belonged to (5% nation), I initially thought they were “trying to imitate” Jamaicans, or – nicer said – “were inspired”, by e.g. Marcus Garvey, or even Rastafari.

I was even right, to a degree. The influence of Marcus Garvey – active in the US since 1917 into the 1920s -, and his movement, were present in all these US Black Power movements, including the Nation Of Islam (NOI).

Yet, they worked out in different ways. As I later focused on Malcolm X as person, the Nation Of Islam became a backdrop, though I still learned something about the NOI, and its ideas.

There were also differences with Garvey, I noticed. For one, Garvey was not a Muslim, but neither (as a Christian) religiously aimed: his goals were social and political, keeping religion more in the private sphere, though still criticizing “pro-White” religious teachings in general.

Beyond this: what are the differences between the Nation Of Islam, and e.g. Rastafari, why ‘Islam” , Black nationalism, etcetera?

A good excuse, moreover, for me to study the Nation Of Islam more in detail, for comparing, with what I have studied already in detail: connecting knowledge I acquired, personal reflections.. the synthesizing essence of the “essay”, in short.. While learning myself along the way..

NATION OF ISLAM

My knowledge about the US organization the Nation Of Islam (henceforth: NOI) was – to be honest – “medium”, and here and there sketchy. Reading more and more about it, I saw more dimensions: “zooming out” or “bird’s view”, to put it in either digital or pre-digital terms. I could compare better with what I have read about and by Marcus Garvey, and general history.

Tellingly, the aspects in which the NOI differed from “mainstream Islam” were aspects that shared similarities with Garvey and Rastafari, but also with ancient African folk beliefs. While the Islam is seriously adhered to, and even seen as the “original religion of Black people” (which – IMHO – is at least a debatable claim, though some want to believe it), at the same time the NOI’s Islam serves similarly as Catholicism once did among Yoruba African slaves in Cuba and Brazil in colonial times, simply as a mask and “front” to hide own beliefs.

STORIES

Own interpretations, deviations are all parts of “story telling”, and history of mankind has taught us that a “good story” can connect masses of people to external, then internalized, goals. For better or worse, certainly. The Bible being a prime example. Also Fascism, Communism, and other totalitarian regimes, – after all - had stories that convinced many, to bind the populace.

There’s a lot of quite imaginative “storytelling” within the NOI I noticed, with several story lines, creatively describing the history of mankind and races. Originally, in the NOI’s teachings, Whites were a race created by an evil scientist on a Greek island named Patmos (strange detail..), lacking all virtues of the original (Black) man, and having only vices and wickedness in them, therefore at one time banned by the supreme being to Western Asia (actual Europe) to live in caves. This view was later sidelined, but was also what Malcolm X was taught, as he entered the NOI: whites were a race of devils.

Absurd?, maybe; racist?, probably; vindictive?, certainly.. but still a creative and powerful story, in some sense. Of course, more nonsensical stories can be found within the NOI, as well as some more positive and plausible ones. In essence, that is the same with the Bible. The strength of Christianity lied in the engaging story: it convinced, and was well-written. The Bible had good, thrilling “plots”.. But.. is what the Bible relates all true, did it really happen? Some scientists doubt that, even beyond the obvious absurdities like Moses splitting a sea, or Jesus walking on water. It is still a good story/plot, and culturally interesting. Moreover: it is of course about the “symbolic” value, the metaphorical meanings, not to be taken literally. Some fools do, though (in all religions).

The latter also applies to the NOI, in my opinion, interesting cultural response through stories/storytelling, but in this case a clearer symbolic, and “social” role and response, namely to the racist conditions and inequalities disfavoring Blacks in the US. That gives it a dynamic, “activist” vibe. One of self-protection, making it more understandable, and – in a sense – more benign.

MAINSTREAM ISLAM

The interesting “off-shoot” of the NOI, “the Five-Percent Nation”, founded in 1964, in the 1970s growing among Black youths, was also nominally Muslim, but strayed even further from mainstream Islam as such. Its (the Five-Percent Nation's, as well as the NOI's) views of Black self-sufficiency and pride are echoes of Garvey, whereas their idea that each Black man is a god, goes toward the Rastafari concept of “I and I”, e.g. God/Jah “within man” (inna man).

Likewise, the NOI has a different view on the “afterlife” than in mainstream Islam, emphasizing more to live good today, with Rastafari adherents having similar ideas, though probably earlier in time. This allows a more activist stance during one’s actual lifetime, more seeking one’s rights while living.

This sets Islam as older (and Arab) religion apart from such later emancipation movements. Islam began as an ideological religious movement among some Arabs on the Arabian peninsula, and became a spreading, conquering religion.

The Garvey movement and NOI were mostly occupied with finding and defending oneself, one’s own group. Seemingly, the Islam served to give “structure” to such goals, for the NOI, while Marcus Garvey kept religion out of his movement, though considering himself a Christian (first Methodist, later Catholic).

Religion is essentially “power”, else it would be a loose spiritual movement, so adding Islam to Black Power probably provided that power base.

For the same reason, though more gradual, the Early Rastafari adherents, largely fitted their views in a Biblical context, and Christian world view, as common in Protestant-dominated Jamaica. A sense of stable power.

Garvey, however, focused on economic organization and international organization of all Black people as source of “stable power” for the UNIA movement. Though not just that: Garvey left religion out of it, but origins certainly not: Africa as Black motherland became equally a (desired) power base, once freed from colonialism.

Therein lies the crux of the difference between the NOI in the US, and the Garvey movement, of which Rastafari can be seen as a branch: the role of Africa, the motherland/continent of origin.

BIGGER WHOLE

Marcus Garvey famously and eloquently said: “ I won’t give up a continent for an island” (meaning Africa for Jamaica). This was later quoted in some Reggae song lyrics by Rastas.

This answers to common human, psychological needs to belong to “bigger wholes”, which is healthy when it is natural. Unhealthy when it is fiction, and only effective for so long, crippling over time, as it alienates someone from oneself.

That psychological need for “a bigger whole” was among the NOI answered by the Islamic faith, after abandoning the “repatriation goal” to Africa, while recognizing the African roots as (merely?) “something of the past”. That is less natural, and not even historically totally correct. Islam originated on the Arabian peninsula by Arabs, then spreading with armies conquering toward North Africa, further into Asia, and even reaching parts of Europe (Iberia, Sardinia, and Sicily).

The connection with Africa – of Islam - is therefore more indirect, as the North African countries “converted” to Islam, were before that Christian, without even European imposition.

This is a fictional element that need not be destructive for a movement, but is nonetheless distracting from truth. Only focusing on the truth secures a strong, lasting foundation.

Eventually, the NOI “gave up on the continent Africa”, as in its pleading for separatism, and a separate homeland for African Americans, it meant (even explicitly stated) a separate state for Black people “on American soil”.

Another key difference, thus, with Garvey’s UNIA movement, which kept aiming at repatriation to an independent Africa. The Rastafari movement in Jamaica, one of the heirs to the Garvey movement maintained that.

AFRICA

Is one Black Power movement therefore better than the other? Mutabaruka describes Rastafari as a “Black power movement with a theological nucleus”. In itself true, but when comparing – as I do now – with the NOI, a word should be added: “with an OWN theological nucleus ”, namely on Haile Selassie – many Rastas consider divine - and Ethiopia, while reinterpreting the Bible. NOI copied an Arabic religion, adapting it also a bit to its own needs, but maintaining its tenets and banner.

The abandonment of a focus on Africa in the NOI started quite early in the movement. The NOI claims that the early precursors of the NOI were the enslaved Africans who were Muslims in parts of the US. A reference to Africa, where parts in the wider Sahel region – from Senegambia to Northern Nigeria -, were Islamicized earlier by Islamic invaders, mixed in within the local culture. This occurred before English, French, Portuguese, Dutch, and so on, got their slaves from there.

While it is true that Africans from those Islamic areas ended up in the US – even relatively more than in Latin America -, they were still not the majority among enslaved Africans in the US, who mostly had other “religions”, “beliefs”, spirit/nature religions before Christianized. The Mississippi Delta was a region in the US South where relatively many “Senegambia/Guinea/Sahel” Africans ended up, having an interesting echo in the Blues, and guitar playing (and the swing/shuffle feel).

Another caveat is that – as many who travelled through different parts of the Islamic world can tell you – that Islam in African countries like Guinea, Senegal, Mali, parts of Ivory Coast, northern Nigeria, Cameroun, parts of Burkina Faso, etcetera, is evidently an own, local, “free” interpretation of the Islam, especially when analyzed beyond the superficial “main pillars”, upheld there too (5 times prayer a day, no alcohol, women dressed with veils and modestly, no public nudity/sexuality, fasting, diet, etcetera). Islam is in Guinee/Sahel Africa mixed with own African traditions. Also among, e.g. the Hausa (a quite numerous ethnic group, also in neighbouring Niger) in northern Nigeria, although a violent Islamist group like the Boko Haram seeks to enforce a stricter Islam.

While – musically - the Mississippi delta Blues, and “swing” in other US Black music styles echo and reflect the heritage that Africanization of Islamic influences (like e.g. “string” instruments) of the rich Guinea region “griot” (travelling musicians) tradition, the Nation Of Islam (NOI) apparently did not attempt such a cultural Africanization, even over time leaning more to the “Orthodox Islam”, the original “Arab model”, so to speak. This also came to the fore in the Malcolm X movie by Spike Lee.

AFRICAN CULTURE

What about more historically accurate alternatives, one might ask? Just like among some Rastas, directly African-derived spirit religions, surviving now in Haitian Vodou, Santería (Cuba), Candomblé (Brazil), or Obeah (Jamaica), known “spirit possession” religions seem to be viewed as backward and “devilish” within the NOI.

Among Rastas, Haile Selassie, and “old” and indigenous Ethiopian Christianity seemed a better foundation, or just some Biblical/Christian aspects “from an African perspective”.

This disdain of Vodou-like actually African religions within some Black Power movements is interesting for its connotations. Of course it relates to a cultural inferiority complex, because of the colonial and slavery past. It also has to do, however, with an already mentioned “stable power base”, and the idea of/believe in "one supreme God". The old-fashioned, rather conservative views on male-female relations within the NOI and (to a lesser degree) among some Rastas – with the man as “head” of the household, women serving him and dressing modestly and behaving sexually conservative, of course are also found in the Bible and the Quran (and Hadith: extra, oral accounts of Mohammed). Stable, strong families, must be the idea, but with a patriarchal structure of male dominance, even bordering misogyny at times.

There’s the idea that matriarchy – or mother/female dominance within families – within Black US (and Jamaican) culture arose from the disruption of family ties due to slavery conditions. This is partly true. Many of the enslaved Africans, though, came from areas in Africa with quite matriarchal, often polygamous cultures, even with polyandry (one woman having several men), and loose relations between even those sharing children. The “extended family” was in such cultures much more important than that Western “nuclear family” idea. Partners (even sharing children) often even did not live together (separate places for women and men, with occasional, let’s say “visits”, haha).

This was the case in many societies from Southern Ghana to Central Africa, which the Islam reached less. North of it (the Sahel zone), remnants of this were somehow fitted in Islamic male patriarchy standards.

In short, male dominance was originally not the family culture in much of Africa, also parts where many slaves came from (percentages dependent on colony: Ghana, Benin, Nigeria, Cameroun, Congo, or Angola).

Some historians even claim that colonizing Spaniards of the time of Columbus were more patriarchal culturally than Yoruba or Congo men in that time, ending up as slaves in Spanish colonies (often brought and sold by other Europeans), or many Amerindians, due to Spain’s religious (Catholic and Moorish/Islamic) conquest history, both upholding male patriarchy and “machismo”.

Further relevant facts: the enslaved Africans in Jamaica came for over an estimated 40% from the (non-Islamic) Ghana region, while Afro-Cubans in nearby Cuba for about 40% from the Congo region, and in also nearby Haiti Africans from the Benin/Togo area were dominant..

To the US went/were brought quite some Senegambian and Guinee-region slaves – Islamic-influenced before -, but also many from non-Muslim areas (many from Igboland, Nigeria, for instance).

The legitimacy of choosing the “Islam”, by the “Black Power movement” NOI, seems thus weak, at best. The NOI thus chose mostly fiction over reality. This is dubious, in my opinion. It betrays political, hidden goals, without knowing what’s hidden.

Reality is the African origins, from which African Americans (and Afro-Caribbeans, of course) were forcibly taken. Reality is however also “cultural heritage”. Culture is very much neglected in political discourse, probably because it is “feared” as too free and liberating for the masses, especially folk culture.

Rastafari is reasonably connected to culture, also to African retentions in Jamaica. While an African retention like Obeah is by some criticized as “devilish” magic, African remnants are in many small and big things in Jamaica, with a “Western” or British superficiality, or even influence, but always mixed.

The connection of Rastafari with Jamaica’s rich musical tradition (and notably Reggae), and Bob Marley’s global fame, brought Rastafari influence in Reggae music, and more African-derived percussion, for example. Subtly woven through Reggae music (and its precursors), the African polyrhythmic and harmonic musical heritage has, by the way, always been present and essential to it.

In addition, the “back to nature” focus of many Rastafari-adherents, with communal self-sufficiency and natural living, also draws on African traditions, long-lost in most of Europe and the Western world since its modernization and industrialization.

The NOI also has acquired economic power and ownership of businesses – along Garvey’s lines –within Black US, but simply fitting in the US capitalist society, without even much of a “cultural” change.

These contradictory aspects in the NOI were forgotten with extremely communicative and intelligent leaders like Malcolm X, keeping it together.

IDENTITY

In time, however, the “slippery slope” of “identity” politics slipped in the NOI, with as effect a superficial and political “identity”, totally detached from (lived ) culture stemming from an actual history. This can have – temporarily – a beneficial, emancipatory effect, but can go terribly wrong, especially with totalitarian regimes. After all, the German Nazi’s had as political identity “the Aryan”: a superior Germanic race, that should rule the world (according to them).

I now also live in a country (the Netherlands) said to have (like Germany) mostly a Germanic/Teutonic (ethno-historic) origin, and in time I got to wonder: what is this own Dutch, originally Germanic (in English also Teutonic) culture? Maybe some countries, like England, the Netherlands, and Germany modernized and industrialized too soon too much to maintain much “original culture”, and the Nazi’s replaced that, indoctrinating the people with a mythical, absurd “racial supremacy” notion, at the cost of others.

Nowadays, despite hidden ancient, Germanic cultural “remnants” (beyond the language), the Netherlands people are international, even imitating aspects of other cultures: from the US (even Black culture), more Southern parts of Europe with presumably more “temperamental” and “life-enjoying” people, or other parts of the world. I noticed this identity crisis – in hindsight – among White Dutch people I encountered, trying to “out-Black” me, because I (of South European descent) showed some appreciation for Black culture: a Reggae t-shirt or patch, for instance. For some odd, mistaken (slightly psychopathic) notion they considered themselves “gatekeeper” (for having more Black friends, maybe?), a phenomenon - White gatekeepers of Black culture) still found here and there. Seems almost like politics.

I guess that “culture” keeps the mind softer and opener than politics..

A Black Power movement based on Vodou-like beliefs would be strange – or to be honest: I would find it funny and intriguing -, but without going so far, still a fruitful, open-minded balance can be found, as is achieved in the Rastafari movement, lacking authoritarian, strict rules.

A balance seems most reasonable in the case of the African Diaspora in the West: colonial past, adapted to other societies, but knowing one’s roots. Realistic about one’s history, roots and routes.

The NOI – for all its interesting aspects – seems to deny some “realistic” aspects, but that is just my opinion, and it’s their prerogative..

IMPLICATIONS

Still, this choice to “abandon” Africa, the continent, as focus among the largest “Black Power” group in the US, the NOI, can have in my opinion negative connotations. For one, it replaces solidarity with the brothers and sisters on the African continent, with a semi-fictional one with the Arab world. You notice this even in the Palestina protests. Fine, and even noble, that Black people feel solidarity with the Palestinians’ cause, and critique Israel’s harsh, brutal, and discriminatory policies in Gaza and elsewhere. Too often, though, these same “selective” activists do not mention what happens elsewhere in the world, such as Africa, with genocides also having occurred or attempted in Sudan (e.g. Darfur) – some say still going on - , and some brutal regimes and violent conflicts here and there (I mentioned already Boko Haram).

Could it be that the fictive/symbolic alignment with the Islam as a “Black man’s religion” – popularized by the NOI – made many turn a blind eye to whatever is done in the name of Islam in Africa, especially when combined with a nice, melanin skin? Could it be that superficial?

People in Islamic (Northern) Sudan call themselves “Arabs”, while clearly mixed with Black Africans, pointing at cultural annihilation and depreciation of Africa and its people. Not unsimilar to what occurred among some African-descended people in the Americas. In the Dominican Republic, most people are mixed (mostly Spanish-African) and Mulatto-like, but long upheld a vague “Hispanic” identity, derived from European Spain. This differed among Dominicans (some saw themselves as mixed also culturally), but was the political norm. The same in Jamaica, where the political elite long fought the Afro-centric Rastafari movement, including even brutal repression and raids up to the 1960, and customary discrimination even into the 1970s. A “Black British” culture aimed at the Anglo-Saxon world, was the proscribed norm for the populace, it seemed.

BLACK-WHITE

Another negative implication is the Black-White discourse. In my opinion, this has gotten out of hand. In the early stages of emancipation it had a function, and even a positive, path-making one, as also Marcus Garvey used that dichotomy (albeit in his days (1910-1930s), also with now old-fashioned terms like Negro and Coloured).

Garvey however never forgot or abandoned the connection of “Black” with Africa.. Despite the politically (and historically) correct now common moniker of “African Americans” for US Blacks (along the lines of Irish American, Italian American, etc.), in common parlance “Black” and “White” is still the norm, not even just among stand-up comedians, for comedic effect (of variable quality in my opinion, though sometimes funny, I must admit).

This seems innocent, and just words, but psychologically can legitimize superficiality of skin color, over a rich African heritage, from even way before slavery. Even the interesting history from “way before Islam came to Africa (7th c. AD)” for that matter.

In my opinion, one’s sense of its (true) origins and culture makes one truly stable and stronger, and even more balanced. Ironically, also more open-minded, as less involved in “politicized oppositions”.

If you know “who you are”, as some put it, you are honest and spiritual enough to show sincere interest in the true beings of other humans – and other cultures! – as well, without games or hiding.

You also are more able to step out spiritually of the “rat race” of Western politics and economics, and apply other worldviews, with distinct, more natural and communally based lifestyles, also found in the African tradition, and applied (in their own way) by e.g. Rastafari adherents in Jamaica or elsewhere.

Also, in different ways, Vodou practitioners in Haïti, or those Afro-Cubans involved in Santería (Yoruba-based) or Palo Mayombe (Congo-based) spiritual faiths, kept open their mind for “alternatives ways of looking at Western culture ”, the (in this case) Catholic colonizers forced on them.

CULTURAL IDENTITY

Sometimes forming one's own personal cultural identity is a matter of “taking the best of both worlds”: I have known in Cuba some (pitch-) black Cubans – who would physically hardly stand out in Lagos or Kinshasa -, who only spoke Spanish proficiently -, and who could quote some poems by Spanish poets (like Federico García Lorca), and even from the famous Spanish novel Don Quichot – while at the same time attending Santería gatherings, and dressed in African/Yoruba attire on occasion, or playing Batá drums.

Rastafari artist and radio personality Mutabaruka also said in an interview that he tries to get the best of both worlds (Western modernity/technology and Africa), and learn about different parts of the world, while at the same time seeking to expand (also in his radio show) the knowledge about Africa and its history in Jamaica and beyond. It broadens one mind, in short, also to compare better internationally.

Though there were interesting and open-minded intellectuals within the Nation Of Islam (NOI) in the past and present – knowledgeable about global affairs, and sometimes say something sensible about it, even Louis Farrakhan – most of its rhetoric deals with the US situation.

Even if this is often just and right criticism of a certainly racist system and society in the US (and also other Western countries, for that matter) – keeping African Americans back structurally -, I think the knowledge of an own origin, and knowledge of one’s culture, offers more ways to deal with this, in an enduring, fruitful way, than playing along with that superficial (colonially inherited) game of “skin colour”. Even if your color is used against you, you can stand above that with pride in your own culture, your actual history, as a “true identity”. True self-assurance and true self-confidence.

That is also the power of a “story”, but more importantly: an indestructible power base in “truth” and love.