The 2002 Bob Marley Festival Tour
"Rastaman Vibrations"

by Antoinette Beaudry

If you havent danced to reggae music, you havent lived. The island rhythms and soothing melodies can cleanse your soul.

For two days, July 6-7, the Sedona Cultural Park becomes the worlds most gorgeous outside dance club, when more than 15 of the worlds hottest reggae, dance-hall, and world-beat artists converge among Sedonas red rocks, on the amphitheatre stage at the Georgia Frontiere Performing Arts Pavilion.

The 2002 Annual Bob Marley Festival Tour: Rastaman Vibrations, which features ethinic foods, crafts and arts vendors from all over the world, is named after the Jamaican superstar who died of cancer in 1981. The tour was started 12 years ago and has traveled to more than 45 cities in the United States and abroad.

Headliners include Ben Hunter, Dee Dread and Zion Nights, Higher Heights, Natty Love Joys, Ras Shaffai Seefari, Inner Vision, Spoon Fed Tribe, Zema, Tony Q, and new Rastafara. Acts come from California, Nevada, Arizona, Texas, Ohio, The Virgin Islands, Indonesia and the Cayman Islands.

The culture of Rastafari is filled with wonderful details and social practices, every bit of which restates the underlying principles of true peace and harmony with all. Its movement was born in Jamaica in 1930 when news of the crowning of Ras Tafari (Haile Selassie), as King of Ethiopia, attracted the attention of Jamaicans. Selassie was proclaimed to be Jah because of his direct descendancy to King Menelik, the son of King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba, and King David, and because of his inherited title, Conquering Lion of the Tribe of Judah, whose coming was foretold in the Bible.

By 1934, a solid nucleus of Rastafari had been established in Kingston, developing as a way of life with adherence to basic life-principles and the expression of them through positive means, along with heightened cultural awareness through language, mode of dress, natural eating habits and seeking of a clear channel away from confines of captivity.

Rastafarian dress places emphasis on individual color and style. The colors red, gold and green play a significant part in the Rastafarian doctrine. Red is for the blood shed by the people, gold is for wealth granted to his people, and green is for the Fertility of the Earth.

After the death of Bob Marley in 1981, celebrations started around the world to honor his memory. Rastaman Vibration is the positive energy that true believing Rastas project at all times to Jahs people, Marley once said.

Tour founder Sirron Kyles said, I wanted the tour to celebrate not only reggae and worldbeat music, but the other things that were important to Bob Marley. This list includes cultural and spiritual unity, world peace, natural foods and the environment.

The tours objective is to spread the positive energy of the Rastas much-needed messages of peace and unity to all nations and races, said Kyles.

With the support of Bob Marley Music, Inc. and the Marley Familys Foundation, the Annual Bob Marley Festival Tour is working to unite many celebrations under one umbrella.

Tickets are $5 in advance and $10 at the door.

For tickets and information on this and other performances at Sedona Cultural Park, call the Parks box office at (928) 203-4TIX, or call the Parks hotline at (800) 594-TIXX, or purchase tickets on-line (sedonaculturalpark.org).