Anyway you've got ska, rocksteady, dub, dancehall, and a legion of white californian groups that should fit your sensibilities more easily. Religions are allowed to have their own thing even/especially when it makes outsiders uncomfortable.
> The forms simply don't make sense when you separate them from their religious context.
As a big reggae fan I totally disagree.
Although there's indeed a lot of roots reggae talking about Selassie and religion, there's also a huge lot of reggae that's not about that. There's even, to me, lots of actual roots reggae that is not about religion but about poor people's struggle.
Lots of reggae is also purely about ganga / smoking (Peter Tosh "Legalize it").
Stuff I listen to... Max Romeo's "Chase the Devil" (and many other Max Romeo songs), Ranking Dread "Superstar" (where he sings about... famous reggae singers), many reggae love songs (Marcia Griffiths "Hold me tight"), John Holt "Police in Helicopter", Horace Andy "Skylarking".
One of my all time favorite: Zap Pow "This is Reggae music". No religion. No poor people's struggle. Just pure reggae sound, with lyrics about... Reggae itself (it's an amazing one, check it out).
There's also more recent anti-consumerist reggae, like Mike Love "Permanent Holidays" (link because this is sooo good):
So yeah big disagree. Not all reggae is about religion, far from it.
That doesn't mean you can't enjoy it from outside that religion or worldview. But it means if you find fault in the point of view it takes, you should find another music to listen to not wish this one was different for you.
For me, I practice an abrahamic religion though not rastafari and a lot of the religious sentiment and imagery resonates with me. Again it's not that all reggae songs are religious. But it's there you know. I find it pretty grim how quick & comfortable people are trying to ignore it, or downplay its significance.
This hasn't been true for a very long time. Just look at Lover's Rock and the really big guys there
- Beres Hammond - Gregory Isaacs - Dennis Brown - Sugar Minott - Ken Boothe - Alton and Hortense Ellis
This certainly is not a religious song
I do actually (some of it, sometimes). Also yes, there is lots of reggae without Haile Selassi.
Also I can make a difference between what other people mean with some words and what I understand by them. Meaning to Rastafari Haile Selassi stands for a great and just ruler. So I can go with those vibes while listening, even though for me the historical Haile Selassi was just another corrupt monarch.
> It's like saying you like gospel or byzantine chant except for the christian lyrics.
People do that. People also like John Lennon or Rage Against The Machine without turning into communists (much to the artists’ disappointment, I think). Music can sound good to you without you having to agree with the lyrical content.
Or The Refused. They added a (simple) manifest to their LP and literally expected that wherever they were touring, uprising would follow.
Why did Ras Trent immediately come to mind? https://youtu.be/TcK0MYgnHjo
Eddie Murphy SNL kill the white people
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-vc5igOAJ7k&ab_channel=takan...
It's an old dynamic.