We can interrogate this trans cultural appeal that he mentions further, and find a finessed and foundational relationship based on particular musical and philosophical aspects of roots reggae and the way these relate to persistent human themes. I have written elsewhere about the ways in which cultural, imaginative and conceptual transmissions occurs through DNA, drawing on epigenetics and the work of Carl Jung, Konrad Lorenz,

Andrew Samuels and Anthony Stevens (Day, 2008 and http://www.pgvim.ac.th/sym/ Files/Proceedings_2017.pdf, pp 56-68). It is sufficient here to say that certain musical forms, and their associated numinous and contingent contextulisations, are transmitted genetically and can be accessed with a degree of intention through deep listening.

Certain music experienced at certain times allows us to walk/swim/wallow in a place that carries the wisdom, solidity and reliability of generations. Being there, outside our constructed and regular, socially received and mediated experience of time and space, can be restorative, centring and inspiring.

Aspects of reggae are built on just this kind of deep cognitive experience. The music was conceived as the heart cry of people dispossessed and forcefully relocated; there is in this music a longing for an intuited personal and ancestral past. At the heart of much roots reggae music is a memory/imagination of a home land. In Welsh this has a name: hiraeth the longing for the once known but now irretrievably lost home. This longing has clear international currency.[7] Rasta ideas reflect a desire for escape from a bad place, called ‘Babylon’, to a better place. This powerfully speaks to concerns found within the ASEAN region. The roots Rasta destination Zion has the characteristics of this idealised place.[8] Song in Rasta, as in so many faiths, is a mystical conduit to the ‘world’ of the lost dream, a tangible-ish, palpable-ish realisation of the longed for transcendent.

Attempts made by rastas to find Zion as an actual, real place have met with mixed success. Walford ‘Poko’ Tyson of the British reggae band Misty in Roots says,

Our focus has always been on taking the music back to Africa and it was never easy. I’m pleased we did it. As a roots band it was what we believed in, but now it’s time to go to America... (Cartwright, 2002: n p)

His enthusiasm for Africa as Zion appears to have been tempered by experience. Misty in Roots similarly modified ‘Babylon’ to ‘Babylon behaviour’ rather than seeing Babylon as a particular place.

Similarly, two rasta members of renowned punk-folk-reggae band Edward the Second who I interviewed, also journeyed to Africa. They returned to England having experienced some disappointment. Bassist Tee Carthy has since returned however, and is now working to make living in Ethiopia a reality for rastas.[9] Thus ‘Babylon’ can be understood as a description of a lamentable social and political situation, something that many around the world can easily identify with. Significantly, Bob Marley made no reference to the specific location of Zion, though his interest and passion for Africa were clear. [10]

I think this consciously global view in Marley’s work is characteristic and deliberate. He was criticised for singing in English rather than patois as a bow to commercial pressures and potential sales, under the influence of his sometime producer and label boss Chris Blackwell.[11] That may well be, but it is also arguable that he wanted to communicate as widely as he could, understanding that the call and desire for home, the desire for a better world, sits deeply across cultures and individuals. Marley toured with singer songwriter Bruce Springsteen who said, “nobody wins unless everybody

wins”.[12] It is this kind of Rastafarianism, extrapolated from the songs of Bob Marley and his collaborators, that I have seen echoes of in the ASEAN region.

The belief in the possibility of positive change and the longing for a better world are powerful expressions of a global strophe. Musician Manu Chau spoke to the global power of Marley’s music when he said in interview with Nigel Williamson,

The more I travelled, the more I realised there is only one ‘world music’ artist. Everywhere you go people respect Bob Marley. He is my teacher in simplicity...

(Williamson, 2002, p. 31)

Jack Healy, a president of Amnesty International, similarly noted, “Everywhere that I go today, Bob Marley is the symbol of freedom.” (Steffans, 2001, no pagination).

Another globalised aspect that enhances reggae’s widespread appeal is the fascinating and often surprising way in which it mixes elements of other musical styles. Reggae’s genesis is syncretic from the start, mixing Jamaican traditional drumming with modern pop sensibilities. Jamaican Producer Byron Lee points out that many major reggae artists knew American pop intimately, as they started as ‘tribute’ bands.

The Blues Busters were simulating Sam and Dave, Jimmy Cliff was simulating Otis Redding, Bob Marley and the Wailers were a take-off of Curtis Mayfield and the Impressions... when acts came on to do shows they’d have to sing copy versions of songs by the act they were simulating as an introduction, only then, when they’d got the applause for that, could they do original material.

(Bradley, 2002, p. 41)

Lloyd Bradley notes that “Southern US radio stations could be received in Jamaica, 90 miles away. American soul acts toured Jamaica extensively.” (Bradley, 2002, p. 40). Similarly, Bunny Wailer says of his band,

...when we went down to three members, The Impressions were our choice (of influence). They were really impressive in their style and the Wailers had a similar kind of harmonic style, so we kinda got linked with Curtis Mayfield and the Impressions in that respect.

(Bradley, 2002, p. 84)

Anand Prahlad’s description of a visit to the Ethiopian church on Maxfield Avenue in Kingston extends this notion of hybridisation:

I noted what sounded to the ear of an outsider as strangely discordant. During several parts of the service, the clergy was singing/chanting in a vocal style derived from Northern Africa; the choir was singing in a style that was more akin to Baptist or Revivalist; the drumming accompanying the singing was Rasta Nyabinghi style; the congregation was singing in a style like the Baptist church back in Virginia...all simultaneously

(Prahlad, 2001, p. 52)

Reggae thus combines aspects of musical modernity with memories of a lost and dreamed of culture, adding a dream of restitution. The reggae of Bob Marley at the same time rejects all that is greed-driven, environmentally careless, oppressive and exploitative.13 It particularly speaks of the injustices of capitalism and its associated hierarchies. This is not surprising given that the Atlantic Slave Trade was the foundation of so many Western economies.

The most intelligent people is the poorest people. Yes, the thief them rich, pure robbers and thieves, rich! The intelligent and innocent are poor, are crumbled and get brutalised. Daily.

(Marley in White, 1992, p. 35)

Alan Lewens says that

Marley became the leader of a musical assault that for a while made reggae the most influential music on the planet. He became more than a reggae star or a rock star. Like Nelson Mandela, his mere name became a byword for a critique of the way the world was run.

(Lewens, 2001, p. 135)

Like the dispossessed in Jamaica, some of the young people of Thailand or Indonesia dream of a homecoming. This involves an embracing and bettering of the culture in which they find themselves. In many cases this is a necessity, as working in their home culture is their only option due to financial and legal constraints. Reggae offers a road map of behaviours and ideas that can facilitate positive change. Rasta, and especially the roots reggae of Bob Marley, filter aspects of culture, approving of some, whilst vehemently rejecting others. The songs are moral and ethical exhortations. “I don’t care who the man is. My right is my right. It’s my life...all I have is my life.” (Marley, 2001, no pagination)

In the ASEAN region, traditions based on Islam, Christianity, Hinduism and Buddhism exercise heavy social control. The Rasta preached in Bob Marley’s songs is a cipher for a particular kind of freedom that is both social and personal. This is appealing to those who are disenamoured with their societies’ traditional forms but do not want to simply turn to the corruption and dissolution of capitalist and neo- liberal epicurean and nihilist lifestyles.

It is in this way that reggae music, in the areas discussed here, allows an embracing of contemporary global culture without buying into its associated rampant greed, materialism and oppression. The choice of Rasta and reggae culture is an

informed and conditional embracing of the new. It does not reject modernity, but does object to those aspects of it that are unpalatable and unacceptable.14

The contemporary Rastas I have met and played with in some countries within the ASEAN region are counter cultural advocates, kicking against social norms and modes that they see as repressive. The dress codes, speech and other aspects of Rasta culture represent a recognisable counter cultural position in both their home societies and in the wider world. In many ways, Rastas in these places represent and reflect a belief and hope about the way a contemporary society could and should be; a hope that is elsewhere often fatigued and at worst exhausted. The ASEAN Rastas I spoke with dream of a better world.

All of this would, however, belong only to the discourses of religion, sociology and sub-culture were it not for the continuingly stimulating melange of music that emerges alongside these ideas. I’ve seen truly fascinating work in the ASEAN region and in East Asia more widely. Perhaps principal within these experiences are developments within Thailand.

Thai history and Thailand’s social situation are very different from Jamaica’s. Jamaica was also a long-time British colony, which practised extensive slavery. The memory of forced migrations, resettlement and slavery powerfully inform Jamaican culture. Rob Partridge, director of press for Island Records from 1977 to 1990, says:

The days of slavery are a recent folk memory on the island. They have permeated the very essence of Jamaica’s culture, from the plantations of the mid-19th century to the popular music of our own times. Although slavery was abolished in 1834, the Africans and their descendants developed their own culture with half remembered African traditions mingled with the customs of the British.

(Partridge, 1992, p. 7)

Thai musicians certainly also challenge and counter hegemonic and oppressive forces but not in the same way as countries with a colonial history, or those based on the heritage of criminal slavery.15 Thai musicians are still very much concerned with oppression, but with those based on historically class-based hierarchies and contemporary wealth-based stratification, overwritten by a top- down cultural imperialism.

Bangkok has in recent years been a notably revolutionary place. Musicians I have watched and interviewed are creating fascinating hybrid works through the choosing of revolutionary aspects of a range of western musical forms, since these offer similar opportunities for social critique and the possibility of liberation.