Title: Joseph - A Rasta Reggae Fable
Author: Barbara Blake Hannah
Publisher: Macmillan Caribbean
Reviewer: Barbara Nelson

The storyteller is Ashanti, or Sister Shanty, who as a child lived in Dungle - "it was a dung hill made of garbage dumped there each day", until they moved to Wareika Hill.

Her father was a gentle and quiet man who "was one of the first beard men, like his friends". While in Wareika Hill, she met young and fiesty Joseph Planter in 1970, when he was contemplating signing a contract for "a white boy from a record company". Ashanti and Joseph became life-long friends. But, Joseph was bitter and confused about the many men who took his music and made money with it and never paid him.

Joseph married Rosy, "a girl-woman who was the first ever to make him feel that his pointed nose and red colour skin were not something to be laughed at". She reminded him of his mother, "raped by the white man in whose St. Ann house she worked". It was doubtful that Joseph really knew what love was with Rosy - didn't he ask the question: "What is love?" in a song.

He married Rosy when she told him she was pregnant. But then the exotic Zuleika came into his life - a woman who was a "sexual whirlwind".

Zuleika was Busha's emissary and made sure that Joseph signed the contract for Tropic records. Busha was, in fact, the millionaire head of Tropic Records (a.k.a the white boy from a record company), and one of Zuleika's lovers.

Joseph and JAH

Author Barbara Blake Hannah - Makeda Levi to her fellow Rastas, writes that when Joseph sang, "there was nothing in the world, but Joseph and JAH," "it was that nearness to JAH that all who saw him sing respected, and wanted to be close to".

Joseph leads a tortuous life. He toured England to promote his album - became "a superstar, a legend, in his own time." the night he performed at the Lyceum Theatre, he moved "a piece of the ghetto in (to) the middle of a posh uptown neighbourhood" to live, courtesy of Busha; was interviewed by the American journalist, Sam Bergman, and was constantly sought out by many women.

Meanwhile, Ashanti meets Peter, in the General Penitentiary in 1974, and he becomes her King-Man. Joseph, meanwhile, is concerned about the escalating violence in the city and is persuaded by Peter to headline a concert to "end the war and seal the peace".

But the bad dreams that Joseph had prior to the concert became reality when he is shot in the back at the concert.

He is taken to Busha's private luxurious palace on Thatch Island near the Bahamas where doctors, nurses, and then Zuleika attend him. There, he learns that the Nyambingi in Jamaica have turned against him and sees the selfish side of Zuleika when she realises that she had given up the glamour of the Grammy Awards show to help to nurse him.

Rasta is not for you

Joseph tells her, "It's time for you to go back to your world. Rasta is not for you. You will never see the light. Don't let me see you again."

In this novel, inspired by the life of the late Bob Marley, the author painstakingly explains many facets of the Rastafarian faith and way of life. For exapmle, "I&I sister swam in shift dresses, not conventional swimsuits, as we did not want to expose ourselves anymore than we did when we were not at the beach, especially to the brothers and elders; that would be impolite."

The unique Rasta use of language, symbolism and interpretation of scriptures are presented from an insider's perspective and this makes it fascinating and enlightening for readers. "Rasta is deeds. A blind man must be able to know you are Rasta from the way you speak, the things you do, the love you bring to people's lives."

Reunited

The story meanders through the travels of Joseph and Peter and Sister Shanty - they are reunited in Shashemane, a place that The Emperor gave to black people of the world who assisted Ethiopia during the Italian war. While there, Joseph tells Peter that he never believed the gossip that Peter was the person who tried to kill him.

The author explains much of the Rasta reasoning and motivation. For example, Peter tells Ashanti, "you can't hate anyone for their colour, because you would just be as bad as those who hate you for your colour. Love must be the only emotion. That is how to conquer hate."

Sam, the journalist, who looks white, but is the black son of a Jamaican maid and a Jewish man in Chicago, continues to hang around the group and admits that he wants to follow Joseph's story to the end.

The journey through Ethiopia was the "most wonderful and strangest experience" Sister Shanti ever had and being in Ethiopia was the most important event in Joseph's life up to that point.

On their return to England, a scandal breaks out in the news media about Joseph. But he uses the occasion to announce that he had opened The Ethiopian Repa-triation Fund.

Joseph, however, is a very sick man and is taken back to Jamaica to the Debre Zeit hillside mona-stery to be cared for by the Nyabingi elders. Both Rosy and Zuleika come to visit him before he dies - each one with her own agenda.

"The coffin had arrived in front of its tomb in the small country village where Joseph was born ... ," but was Joseph, the Psalmist, JAH-son, really dead? Then again, 'Joseph' is A Rasta Reggae Fable.