>> It would seem to dovetail nicely with Communism in som,e regards, except that even Communism and its abstract concepts like “dictatorship of the proletariat” and “dialectic” are considered too theoretical and inauthentic to express pure blackness. <<
1. I was talking about Marley and his potentially cynical salesmanship to the US market, which is 30 times larger than his home market of Jamaica.
2. By the 1970s, Soviet-friendly regimes existed in all corners of Africa, so I’d hardly argue that communism doesn’t fit with African nationalism. There certainly are difficulties meshing it with certain beliefs and belief structures, but if it can take root in Christian Orthodox lands, it can take root in Africa... and be twisted into something that seems uniquely African.
3. I’m not at all familiar with Ausar Auset, but the 5%NOI is completely alien to Rasta, is it not? Rasta sees Islam (correctly) as an Arab (white) intrusion into Africa, which is why they DIDN’T see Egypt (for instance) as being independent. I would state that NOI is purely a US phenomenon, and not indicative at all of African pan-African movements, wouldn’t you?
Marley's US success took him almost completely by surprise. No Jamaican artist had ever been more than a one hit wonder in the US (Desmond Dekker, "Israelites"), but Jamaican music sold well in the UK in urban markets. He took reggae and added funk and rock elements in the hope of breaking into the UK market.
That's why he signed with Island, and recorded in England and toured England instead of Jamaica.
Soviet-friendly regimes existed in all corners of Africa, so I’d hardly argue that communism doesn’t fit with African nationalism
True. But in the case of Rastafarianism, Haile Selassie was their deity and he opposed Communism, and he was deposed by Communists. Rastafarians, unlike some other black nationalists, had issues with Communism for that reason and there was a big rift in Rastafarianism with different factions taking sides when Michael Manley sent Jamaican soldiers to fight with Castro's troops in Angola.
I would state that NOI is purely a US phenomenon, and not indicative at all of African pan-African movements, wouldn’t you?
Well, neither is Rastafarianism. Rastafarianism exists only where Jamaicans live, mostly in Jamaica, the UK and the northeastern US. Very few non-Jamaican black people are Rastafarians. There are no actual Ethiopian Rastafarians that I know of.
The Nation Of Gods And Earths, known as the Five Percenters, are very different from the Nation Of Islam.
Their founder, Clarence 13X, was expelled from the NOI. 5%ers smoke, drink, do drugs and eat pork if they want to. They don't care about the usual NOI rules about abstaining from crimes like mugging and robbery.
More significantly, they reject NOI theology. The NOI teaches that Allah is an all-powerful spirit who directly created black people only (while white people are actually an experiment by an evil black scientist that went awry), who loves the black man and who raised up prophets and leaders for the black man like WD Fard, Elijah Muhammad and Louis Farrakhan to lead them from the wilderness of North America to one day take their place in the African homeland.
5%ers do not teach that Allah is an external creating spirit that loves only black people: they teach that the black man is God. I wish I could explain how radically bizarre this theology is.
They are saying that each and every black man physically alive on earth is in himself God and Creator of the Universe. 5%ers pray to themselves. They believe, and I am not joking, that the word "Allah" itself is a secret code revealing the truth of this proposition - that it is code for a black man's physical body: Arm LegLegArmHead.
They call one another "God" - "What's up, God? How ya livin'?"
They believe that every word is a secret acronym that can be interpreted by a system they call "The Supreme Alphabet" and every number is a secret equation that can be interpreted by a system they call "Supreme Mathematics."
They believe that Manhattan is a holy place and call it "Mecca." They believe that Brooklyn is also a holy place and they call it "Medina."
5%ers are far more different from the NOI than the NOI are different from Sunni Islam.
5%ers are not only nonexistent outside of the US as far as I know, they are almost nonexistent outside of the DC-to-Boston corridor and I would guess that more than 50% of all the 5%ers in the world live in NYC, Philadelphia, Newark, Camden and Trenton.
There is an entire subgenre of northeastern hip hop entirely dedicated to rhyming in 5%er code.
Ausar Auset is pantheistic black nationalist philosophy which sees the black man as the natural offspring of the earth and ancient Egyptian texts like the Book of the Dead as a source of rituals wherewith black people can reconnect with the earth and reclaim their status as its masters and keepers.
That is more popular on the West Coast, especially the Bay Area, where there are several Ausar rappers.
Marley's US success took him almost completely by surprise. No Jamaican artist had ever been more than a one hit wonder in the US (Desmond Dekker, "Israelites"), but Jamaican music sold well in the UK in urban markets. He took reggae and added funk and rock elements in the hope of breaking into the UK market.
That's why he signed with Island, and recorded in England and toured England instead of Jamaica.
Soviet-friendly regimes existed in all corners of Africa, so I’d hardly argue that communism doesn’t fit with African nationalism
True. But in the case of Rastafarianism, Haile Selassie was their deity and he opposed Communism, and he was deposed by Communists. Rastafarians, unlike some other black nationalists, had issues with Communism for that reason and there was a big rift in Rastafarianism with different factions taking sides when Michael Manley sent Jamaican soldiers to fight with Castro's troops in Angola.
I would state that NOI is purely a US phenomenon, and not indicative at all of African pan-African movements, wouldn’t you?
Well, neither is Rastafarianism. Rastafarianism exists only where Jamaicans live, mostly in Jamaica, the UK and the northeastern US. Very few non-Jamaican black people are Rastafarians. There are no actual Ethiopian Rastafarians that I know of.
The Nation Of Gods And Earths, known as the Five Percenters, are very different from the Nation Of Islam.
Their founder, Clarence 13X, was expelled from the NOI. 5%ers smoke, drink, do drugs and eat pork if they want to. They don't care about the usual NOI rules about abstaining from crimes like mugging and robbery.
More significantly, they reject NOI theology. The NOI teaches that Allah is an all-powerful spirit who directly created black people only (while white people are actually an experiment by an evil black scientist that went awry), who loves the black man and who raised up prophets and leaders for the black man like WD Fard, Elijah Muhammad and Louis Farrakhan to lead them from the wilderness of North America to one day take their place in the African homeland.
5%ers do not teach that Allah is an external creating spirit that loves only black people: they teach that the black man is God. I wish I could explain how radically bizarre this theology is.
They are saying that each and every black man physically alive on earth is in himself God and Creator of the Universe. 5%ers pray to themselves. They believe, and I am not joking, that the word "Allah" itself is a secret code revealing the truth of this proposition - that it is code for a black man's physical body: Arm LegLegArmHead.
They call one another "God" - "What's up, God? How ya livin'?"
They believe that every word is a secret acronym that can be interpreted by a system they call "The Supreme Alphabet" and every number is a secret equation that can be interpreted by a system they call "Supreme Mathematics."
They believe that Manhattan is a holy place and call it "Mecca." They believe that Brooklyn is also a holy place and they call it "Medina."
5%ers are far more different from the NOI than the NOI are different from Sunni Islam.
5%ers are not only nonexistent outside of the US as far as I know, they are almost nonexistent outside of the DC-to-Boston corridor and I would guess that more than 50% of all the 5%ers in the world live in NYC, Philadelphia, Newark, Camden and Trenton.
There is an entire subgenre of northeastern hip hop entirely dedicated to rhyming in 5%er code.
Ausar Auset is pantheistic black nationalist philosophy which sees the black man as the natural offspring of the earth and ancient Egyptian texts like the Book of the Dead as a source of rituals wherewith black people can reconnect with the earth and reclaim their status as its masters and keepers.
That is more popular on the West Coast, especially the Bay Area, where there are several Ausar rappers.