"So you can emancipate yourself from that and recognize the divine within you, your real value."ĬNN’s Belief Blog: The faith angles behind the biggest stories "The line, 'emancipate yourself from mental slavery,' - if someone can convince you that you are inferior, then they have really oppressed you," Salter said. Salter points to Bob Marley's "Redemption Song," as a key to understanding that point. He says Jamaicans oppressed by colonial overlords saw the new faith as a means of liberation.Ī key belief for Rastas is the notion of death to all white and black oppressors the religion embodies a theological push for equality on all levels. Nathaniel Murrell, a religion professor at the University of North Carolina Wilmington, said the movement Rastafari grows out of the Judeo-Christian tradition and out of the colonial experience. "Sometimes that return is a return in body, actually going back to Ethiopia, and sometimes it's more of a spiritual return." focuses on the return to Africa of its members," says Richard Salter, a religious studies scholar from Hobart and William Smith Colleges in New York who studies the movement. The Rastafari movement began in Jamaica in 1930 and quickly spread. So what exactly is Rastafari? Here are some basic questions and answers: It debuts at the Toronto Film Festival next month. Snoop Lion has a new single, "La la la," and a documentary "Reincarnated," which follows his recent trip to Jamaica and chronicles his conversion experience. "From that moment on," Snoop said, "it's like I had started to understand why I was there." "I didn't know that until I went to the temple, where the high priest asked me what my name was, and I said, 'Snoop Dogg.' And he looked me in my eyes and said, 'No more. "I want to bury Snoop Dogg and become Snoop Lion," he said at a Monday press conference. Snoop Dogg wants to be called Snoop Lion and instead of rapping on his latest album now he'll be singing reggae. (CNN) - Rapper Snoop Dogg announced Monday that he's burying his name and old career, all because of a religious experience with Rastafari, an Afrocentric religion with origins in Jamaica. By Eric Marrapodi, CNN Belief Blog Co-Editor