Chapter 3 Summary and Analysis

Reggae is a fundamentally different experience from punk, being influenced not by the amphetamine frenzy of rock, but rather the slow groove of ganja. Hebdige argues that reggae is a primarily black narrative, chronicling the culture's engagement with slavery, religion and servitude. Reggae, with its strong cultural discourse, seems alien and threatening to the white mass culture. From the Christianity that once legitimized their enslavement, the black culture forges a new religious narrative, inspired by faith and informed by grace, that is uniquely their own. Reggae becomes the voice of this newborn narrative.

In an effort to understand their new world, explains Hebdige, Jamaican slaves forged a new discourse by mixing their own oral traditions with biblical teachings. The Rastafarian reading of The Bible, which places God in Africa and "the black sufferer" in Babylon, challenges the religious understanding of white...