Time and Memory in Reggae Music: The Politics of Hope
Sarah Daynes
Abstract
On the basis of a body of reggae songs from the 1970s and late 1990s, this book offers a sociological analysis of memory, hope and redemption in reggae music. From Dennis Brown to Sizzla, the way in which reggae music constructs a musical, religious and socio-political memory in rupture with dominant models is illustrated by the lyrics themselves. How is the past remembered in the present? How does remembering the past allow for imagining the future? How does collective memory participate in the historical grounding of collective identity? What is the relationship between tradition and revolut ... More
On the basis of a body of reggae songs from the 1970s and late 1990s, this book offers a sociological analysis of memory, hope and redemption in reggae music. From Dennis Brown to Sizzla, the way in which reggae music constructs a musical, religious and socio-political memory in rupture with dominant models is illustrated by the lyrics themselves. How is the past remembered in the present? How does remembering the past allow for imagining the future? How does collective memory participate in the historical grounding of collective identity? What is the relationship between tradition and revolution, between the recollection of the past and the imagination of the future, between passivity and action? Ultimately, this case study of ‘memory at work’ opens up on a theoretical problem: the conceptualisation of time and its relationship with memory.
Keywords:
reggae,
memory,
hope,
redemption,
Dennis Brown,
Sizzla,
collective identity,
tradition,
revolution,
time
Bibliographic Information
| Print publication date: 2010 |
Print ISBN-13: 9780719076213 |
| Published to Manchester Scholarship Online: July 2012 |
DOI:10.7228/manchester/9780719076213.001.0001 |
