Who is Bob Marley

Reggae is a music genre first developed in Jamaica in the late 1960s. While sometimes used in a broader sense to refer to most types of Jamaican music, the term reggae more properly denotes a particular music style that originated following on the development of ska and rocksteady.

Reggae is based on a rhythmic style characterized by accents on the off-beat, known as the skank. Reggae is normally slower than ska but faster than rocksteady. Reggae usually accents the second and fourth beat in each bar, with the rhythm guitar also either emphasising the third beat or holding the chord on the second beat until the fourth is played. It is mainly this "third beat", its speed and the use of complex bass lines that differentiated reggae from rocksteady, although later styles incorporated these innovations separately.

The Rastafari movement is a monotheistic, Abrahamic, new religious movement that has arisen from Judaism and Christianity."Dread Jesus": A New View of the Rastafari Movement It emerged in the 20th century, predominantly in Jamaica. Its adherents are known as Rastafarians, or Rastas for short. The movement is sometimes referred to as "Rastafarianism", but this term is considered derogatory and offensive by some Rastas, who dislike being labelled as an "ism".Encyclopedia of African and African-American Religions p. 263 by Stephen D. Glazier, 2001

Rastafari is not a highly organized religion; it is a movement and an ideology. Many Rastas say that it is not a "religion" at all, but a "Way of Life".[http://books.google.com/books?id=t-VVY9-aVYoC&pg=PA151&dq=rastafari+%22way+of+life%22+religion] Most Rastas do not claim any sect or denomination, and thus encourage one another to find faith and inspiration within themselves, although some do identify strongly with one of the "mansions of Rastafari" ? the three most prominent of these being the Nyahbinghi, the Bobo Ashanti and the Twelve Tribes of Israel.

The name Rastafari is taken from Ras Tafari, the pre-regnal title of Haile Selassie I, composed of Amharic Ras (literally "Head," an Ethiopian title equivalent to Duke), and Haile Selassie's pre-regnal given name, Tafari. Rastafari are generally distinguished for asserting the doctrine that Haile Selassie I, the former, and final, Emperor of Ethiopia, is the incarnation of God, called Jahthe Rasta name for God incarnate, from a shortened form of Jehovah found in in the King James Version of the Bible or Jah Rastafari. However, there are other groups, or mansions (sects) also claiming the name of Ras Tafari, who believe that Haile Selassie I is not the second coming and that Jesus Christ is the only Messiah.

The Rastafari movement encompasses themes such as the spiritual use of cannabisDread, The Rastafarians of Jamaica, by Joseph Owens ISBN 0-435-98650-3The Ganja Complex: Rastafari and Marijuana by Ansley Hamid (2002) and the rejection of western society (called Babylon, in reference more to the metaphoric Babylon of Christianity than to the historical Mesopotamian city-state). It proclaims Africa (also "Zion") as the original birthplace of mankind, and embraces various Afrocentric social and political aspirations such as the sociopolitical views and teachings of Jamaican publicist, organizer, and black nationalist Marcus Garvey (also often regarded as a prophet).

Today, awareness of the Rastafari movement has spread throughout much of the world, largely through interest generated by reggae music?most notably, that of Jamaican singer/songwriter Bob Marley. By 1997, there were around one million Rastafari faithful worldwide.Chanting Down Babylon p. 1 About five to ten percent of Jamaicans identify themselves as Rastafari.