The following is a brief preview - the full content of this page is available to premium users only.
Click here to subscribe...
Brent Clough, co-curator with Maud Page of the 6th Asia Pacific Triennial’s (APT6’s) ‘Pacific Reggae: Roots Beyond the Reef’ programme, notes in his catalogue essay the huge impact Bob Marley’s 1979 tour of Australia, New Zealand and Hawaii continues to have in the Pacific. Certainly, in New Zealand-Aotearoa, the late Marley remains an iconic figure, attracting the sort of reverence reserved for a holy man, a contemporary equivalent of the local prophets that populate Maori-Christian sects. A visit to the Parihaka Peace Festival (the site of an historic incident of Maori passive resistance to colonial aggression) would reveal the dominant presence of reggae music, including Marley covers, and a campsite liberally festooned with Marley banners, t-shirts and other memorabilia. The same goes for numerous other roots-themed festivals around the country. There is even a national holiday: for many, Waitangi Day on 6 February (commemorating the Treaty of Waitangi between Maori and the crown) is also known as Bob Marley Day due to it also being his birthday.
To holiday-makers in Aotearoa, the ubiquitous presence of reggae in pubs, takeaway shops, and on campsite stereos (although it has yet to receive the same treatment on metropolitan AOR radio) might seem a naturally sunny soundtrack for summer barbecues in the South Pacific. But reggae arrived in Aotearoa as a political vehicle, providing a voice to Maori and Pacific Islanders in an era already simmering with cultural unrest. Reggae may already have had a nascent following, but, in the wake of Marley’s still-talked-about 1979 stadium appearance, Rastafarianism and its accompanying soundtrack ceased to be just an obscure interest for underground radicals. Most notably, the pan-Pacific group Herbs was established, mixing Polynesian guitars, rhythms... The rest of this article is available to subscribers of Eyeline