Rastafari hermeneutics and the music of Bob Marley.

What is it about?

This paper presents Paul Ricœur’s hermeneutic of the productive imagination as a methodological tool for understanding the innovative social function of texts that in exceeding their semantic meaning, iconically augment reality. Through the theological reflections of Rastafari elder Mortimo Planno’s unpublished text, Rastafarian: The Earth’s Most Strangest Man, and the andt the musical reflections of his most famous postulate, Bob Marley, this paper applies Paul Ricœur’s concept of religious productive imagination to understand the metaphoric transfer of verbal and iconic images of Rastafari’s hermeneutic of word, sound, and power through what Ricœur terms “the phenomenology of the iconic augmentation of reality.” Understanding this semantic innovation is critical to understanding the capacity of the religious imagination to transform reality as a proclamation of hope in the midst of despair. In this paper, these concepts are illustrated through a joint analysis of Rastafari elder Mortimo Planno’s The Earth’s Most Strangest Man and two of Rastafari reggae performer Bob Marley’s songs, “Johnny Was” and “No Woman, No Cry.”

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Why is it important?

As a prophet of Rastafari, Marley’s music and lyrics exemplifies a consistent hermeneutic method of parabolization through word, sound, and power. By citing-up the historical, social, political, and economic context of slavery, colonialism, racism, and oppression as seen through the lens of Biblical text, in dialogue with the narrative and images of extra-biblical texts, Marley chants down the evil of Babylon while paradoxically casting our gaze to hope in Zion. This paradox, Ricœur maintains, “consists in the fact there is no other way to do justice to the notion of metaphorical truth other than to include the critical incision of the (literal) “is not” (Johnny was. . .) within the ontological vehemence of the (metaphorical) “is” (Johnny is a good man).” By enlarging our hermeneutic horizon, our gaze shifts beyond the ordinary and for some, suspect, canons of sacred texts. The veil is removed for those who have eyes to see, allowing us to see the canon within the canon which is the truth, the word made flesh, written on the other half of the heart.