In Conversation: On Rastafari in the 21st Century: What Life has Taught I&I – Volume I

I. Jabulani Tafari is a multimedia journalist, graphic artist, and managing editor of the Rootz, Reggae & Kulcha Magazine. He received the Ranny Williams Prize for cultural interest in 1981, becoming the first Rastafarian journalist ever to win a national award from the Press Association of Jamaica. In Rastafari In The 21st Century – What Life Has Taught I&I: Volume One: Tribute to the Rastafari Elders (Rootz Foundation Inc.), Tafari and co-author Priest Douglas Smith present the previously unwritten history of the first generation of Rastafari elders. The book is a literary tribute, as many of those elders are transitioning on to become ancestors, and their stories are already starting to fade from the collective memory of the people of Jamaica and the world. As second-generation Rastafari youth growing up in the 1970s, Tafari and Smith sat at the feet of many of these elders and often heard them expound extensively about the mystic revelation of Rastafari and about the early days of the Rastafari movement. The authors also heard them reason about any number of topics related to the theology, ideology, and spirituality of the movement.

Priest Douglas Smith is a leading priest and a founding member of the Miami branch of the Ethiopia Africa Black International Congress, and the president of the Rootz Foundation, a Florida-based nonprofit. Smith is also the author of The Philosophy & Opinions of the High Priest, a literary tribute to Bobo Ashanti founder King Emmanuel Charles Edward. In Rastafari In The 21st Century – What Life Has Taught I&I: Volume One: Tribute to the Rastafari Elders (Rootz Foundation Inc.), Smith and co-author I. Jabulani Tafari present the previously unwritten history of the first generation of Rastafari elders. The book is a literary tribute, as many of those elders are transitioning on to become ancestors, and their stories are already starting to fade from the collective memory of the people of Jamaica and the world. As second-generation Rastafari youth growing up in the 1970s, Smith and Tafari sat at the feet of many of these elders and often heard them expound extensively about the mystic revelation of Rastafari and about the early days of the Rastafari movement. The authors also heard them reason about any number of topics related to the theology, ideology, and spirituality of the movement.