Origin from 1948
Caribbean migration to Britain, begun with the 1948 Windrush arrivals and continuing through the following decades, carried Rastafari to the United Kingdom. By the late 1970s and into the early 1980s a distinctly British reggae scene had formed, Steel Pulse, Aswad, UB40, Smiley Culture and Carroll Thompson prominent within it, trading Jamaican ghetto themes for UK inner-city ones and blending Jamaican patois with Cockney slang, a British-born expression of the movement rather than a simple import of Jamaica's own.
Facts
Disputed
End YearSourced to the subject's own accountThe Reggae article gives this only as "late 1970s" and "early 1980s," never an exact year; 1980 is this atlas's representative year within that named range, not a settled date the source itself states. Dates
Start YearSourced to the subject's own account StatusSourced to the subject's own account Learn More
How Reggae Carried Rastafari to Britain
This article records tradition as it has been passed down and reported. Its sources are not yet part of the atlas's verified catalogue.
Caribbean migration to Britain, beginning with the 1948 arrival of the Empire Windrush and continuing across the decades that followed, carried Rastafari to the United Kingdom along with the migrants who held it. The movement did not simply transplant itself unchanged; it grew into something distinctly British over the years that followed the first arrivals.
By the late 1970s and into the early 1980s a reggae scene rooted in Britain itself had formed, carried by groups and performers including Steel Pulse, Aswad, UB40, Smiley Culture and Carroll Thompson. Their music traded the ghetto themes of Jamaican reggae for the inner city conditions of Britain's own cities, and it blended Jamaican patois with Cockney slang, a mixture of language that marked the sound as belonging to Britain rather than to Jamaica alone.
What this reggae scene changed for Rastafari's spread was the movement's character in Britain itself: rather than remaining an import carried unchanged from Jamaica, Rastafari became, through this music, a British born expression of the faith, speaking in a voice shaped by the streets its new adherents actually lived in rather than the island most of them, or their parents, had left behind.
Cross-Tradition Connections
Occurred In
Spread Event Of
Sources
Reader Challenges (0 open reader challenges)
No disputes yet. Spotted an error or a better source? Open the first one.
Sign in to dispute this or suggest a correction.
View At A Past Year
Choose a year to see this entry's facts and connections as the atlas records them at that moment: what it held then, what it held instead, and what it had not yet adopted. Choose Present for the current record.