Reggae becomes intangible heritage of humanity

"I woke up in the morning in a curfew, God, I was also a prisoner, I could not recognize the people around me, they wore uniforms of brutality ". It is words like Bob Marley's song that convinced Unesco to declare reggae, Jamaican rhythm, intangible cultural heritage of humanity.

More than an artistic recognition, the decision of Unesco considered the music of the Caribbean island as an instrument of denunciation. "Their contribution to international reflection on issues such as injustice, resistance, love and the human condition highlights the intellectual, socio-political, spiritual and sensual strength of this element of cultural heritage", said the organization in a statement.

For Unesco, reggae "preserves intact a whole series of basic social functions of music – vehicle of social opinions, cathartic and religious practice – and continues to be a means of Cultural expression for the Jamaican population as a whole. "

In 1973, another Marley song won the award. Get Up, Stand Up called on the people to "defend their rights" and "do not give up the fight".

The United Nations recalled that this musical genre was born from a "fusion of ancient Jamaican musical rhythms and rhythms". others of very different origins: Caribbean, Latin American and North American. "At all levels of the country's education system, he added," the teaching of this music, from kindergarten to university, is present. "

Born at the end of In the 1960s, reggae was born in a country still devastated by poverty, and it was still impossible to dissociate itself from the Rastafarian movement, a system that was created in the 1930s in Kingston and which also had a strong resistance to African culture.

In the ghettos of Jamaica, music has become a reflection of a country that, even with the end of slavery, could not offer dignified living conditions Reggae has become a means of expressing this frustration

The information is taken from the newspaper O Estado de S. Paulo

Source: Estadão Summary