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Port Louis, Mauritius.
The jamaican reggaeor, which has gained international fame through iconic Bob Marley, registered on Thursday on the list of Intangible Heritage of Humanity of Unesco.
The decision to include reggae was taken by the Intergovernmental Committee for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of the Organization, which met this week at Port Louis, the capital of Mauritius.
"It is a historic day, we are very very happy, I am excited," said Jamaica's Minister of Culture, Olivia Grange, who went to Mauritius for the occasion. "This underlines the importance of our culture and our music whose theme and message is love, unity and peace," he said in an interview with L & # 39; 39; AFP.
Unesco stressed that the contribution of this musical genre "to international reflection on issues such as injustice, resistance, love and the human condition underlines the intellectual, socio-political, spiritual strength and sensuality of this element of cultural heritage ".
He also recalled that while it was initially a musical expression of marginalized communities, it was later "adopted by broad layers of society regardless of gender, ethnicity or religion".
– Ska and rocksteady –
This rhythm joins a list created in 2003 and which already has nearly 400 traditions or cultural expressions ranging from Neapolitan pizza to flamenco, passing by Belgian beer, yoga or tango.
The Unesco Committee, which was expected to consider about 40 registration applications at its meeting in Mauritius, including four Latin American and one Spanish, recorded on Wednesday the Parrandas of Cuba and Thursday the Romería of Zapopán mexicana and the Congo culture of Panama.
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The Reggae, nominated by Jamaica, was developed in the 1960s from ska and rocksteady and incorporates the influences of American soul, rhythm and blues.
This Caribbean musical style quickly became popular in the United States and the United Kingdom, thanks to the many Jamaican immigrants who arrived after the Second World War. It has often been claimed as the music of the oppressed, addressing social and political issues, prison and inequality.
"Reggae is a distillate of various Jamaican genres, dating back to the era of slavery," noted Jamaican musicologist Garth White in a video published by Unesco.
It is inseparable from the Rastafarian spiritual movement, which sanctifies the Ethiopian emperor Haile Selassie and encourages the use of marijuana.
In 1968, the song "Do the Reggay" of Toots and the Maytals was the first to use the name of reggae, a rhythm which later obtained a huge success worldwide thanks to the great classics of Bob Marley and his band, The Wailers " No Woman, No Cry "," Stir It Up "or" I shot the sheriff ".
This is "excellent news" because reggae "has never had the recognition that it deserves and has always been a little out of the way," said Jerome Levasseur, director of Festival Bagnols Reggae, famous festival organized in the south of France.
"Reggae is exclusively jamaican," said the culture minister before the vote. "It's a music we've created that has penetrated the world."
Unlike the World Heritage List, that of intangible cultural heritage is not established according to criteria of "excellence or exclusivity", according to Unesco. It does not seek to bring together the "most beautiful" heritage, but to represent its diversity and showcase the arts and skills of different communities.
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