Turban Crown: Boboshanti Arts of Resistance in Ghanaian Reggae‐Dancehall

Abstract

The Boboshanti mansion, born of a highly specific moment of marginalization and radical displacement in the 1950s and ’60s in Kingston, Jamaica, remains among the most pious, militant, and reclusive sects of Rastafari. Through the voices of its key musician‐proponents, Bobo philosophy has had a lasting impact on reggae and dancehall music production in Jamaica and internationally. Adopted and adapted in and around Accra since the millennium, this socioreligious practice and now musical tradition has had a similar impact within and beyond the growing local reggae‐dancehall industry in Ghana. Its largely male, often Muslim and youthful proponents draw on a contentious mix of confrontational “judgment,” “fire‐burning” politics, and ascetic living to speak across religion, ethnicity, and class in an already fervently religious and politically conservative Ghanaian social sphere. Drawn from ethnographic research conducted between 2013 and 2017 in Accra, and through the symbols of the “turban” and the “crown”—forms of adornment and social posture with which Bobos distinguish themselves—this short article will briefly engage the narrative threads of select local Bobo‐inspired dancehall artists and activists, to explore the politics of music making and spiritual community building in Ghana.