FRANKLIN - Mark Mohr has a snappy slogan to differentiate his band from the many others that play reggae music. "I read The Word," he says with a laugh. "I don't smoke the herb.".

Story last updated at 11:12 a.m. on July 18, 2003 The Associated Press
FRANKLIN - Mark Mohr has a snappy slogan to differentiate his band from the many others that play reggae music. "I read The Word," he says with a laugh. "I don't smoke the herb."

Mohr calls his band Christafari, a play-on-words based on "Rastafari," the name for members of the Jamaican sect who concocted reggae. He's also owner of a label, Lion of Zion Entertainment, that has released more than a dozen reggae/gospel albums by Christafari and other artists.

Mohr, a 31-year-old white Christian based in the Los Angeles area, speaks with the cadences of a California surfer but affects a Jamaican patois on Christafari songs. He wears his hair in dreadlocks, like the Rastafarians who mixed their own beat and beliefs to American soul music to create reggae.

Reggae's hypnotic beat is ofttimes enjoyed with marijuana, and many of its songs celebrate it. One of the genre's classics is "Legalize It" by Peter Tosh.

The music also has been intertwined from its birth with the philosophies of the Rastafaris.

Rastas believe Haile Salassie I, the late emperor of Ethiopia, was the Messiah. Selassie was known as Ras Tafari before being crowned, and Rastafarians took their name from his. They believe that smoking marijuana brings them closer to God.

Though Mohr cultivates the reggae look and sound, he is firm in his Christianity and resolute that it is irreconcilable with Rastafari beliefs.

Reggae songs commonly include Biblical imagery, but some Rastafarians can't accept Christofari, either. Eight years ago, Mohr said, a rising reggae star became incensed about his Christian views and attacked him with a knife in the lobby of a Cleveland hotel during a tour. Mohr wasn't hurt and declined to press charges.

"It was just a zealous, brand new Rasta who was trying to prove himself to the rest," Mohr said.

That kind of reaction hasn't caused Mohr to be less direct about his beliefs. He precedes the Christafari song "Why You Go Look" on the "WordsSound&Power" CD with audio of Salassie denying he is the messiah.

"While I respect Christafari's right to express their religious beliefs, they have to expect some backlash when recording such messages in an art form that has a large Rastafarian following and that owes so much of its formation to Rastas," wrote reggae reviewer Mark Harris.

Harris, of Hyattsville, Md., has reviewed more than 4,000 reggae albums on his Web site Reggae Reviews. He says Mohr has "a talent for crafting catchy melodies," but "I feel a bit put off when it seems (Christafari) are putting down other religions."

Christafari also doesn't fit well into a Franklin-based contemporary Christian music scene that favors a high-sheen pop sound. The band's records rarely get airplay on Christian music stations.

"In the reggae community I'm too Christian, and in the Christian community I just don't fit their format," Mohr said. "Musically, we're far more in line with what Bob Marley did, or what Steel Pulse or even Sean Paul or Shaggy have done."

Christian reggae is not that much of a stretch. "People like Bob Marley and even Peter Tosh, who was the most militant, started in the Christian church," Mohr said.

As early as the 1970s, reggae artist Vivian Jackson (later renamed Yabby You) was releasing Christian-themed songs like "Love Thy Neighbor" and "Anti-Christ." Papa San, a popular Jamaican artist, converted to Christianity in the 1990s, and now calls his music "Gospel Dancehall."

But the most popular reggae performers - including the superstar Marley - have been of the Rastafarian, marijuana-promoting variety.

Mohr was first exposed to reggae in California by a Jamaican neighbor, then during a family vacation to the Caribbean nation.

"Being raised in a Christian family, I was dealing with a guilty conscience," he said. "I was trying to figure out a way to justify my sins, my use of marijuana. I thought I'd found the perfect attempt to justify that, with reggae music.

"But it just didn't quite add up eventually, and after a few more years of rebellion, and actually trying to start a reggae band based on the world, based on marijuana, I came to Christ at the age of 17."

A mentor advised Mohr to make sure he was theologically sound before attempting to combine reggae with gospel, so he studied the Bible at Biola University in La Mirada, Calif. He left before earning his degree to join a reggae tour but has since been ordained as a minister.

"Our mission statement is to reach the world through world music," Mohr said. "Our audience is on the fringe, with the open-minded reggae fans who are willing to accept good music, even if the message isn't 'Rastafari liveth.'

"And it's also with the Christian fans who aren't quite satisfied with the average contemporary Christian releases that are more cookie-cutter sonically than what we're doing.

"So our audience is a counterculture, I guess."

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POSTED: January 30th, 2005, 5:00am

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