Ras Michael

Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie, worshipped as the Almighty God within the Rastafarian movement, carries the title Negus, to whom Ras Michael and the Sons of Negus deliver unparalleled poetic reverence. Rooted in the heartbeat’s rhythm and anchored by the hand-beaten drum—the primordial “instrument of ten strings”—this music draws its pulse directly from that source. Michael shaped a sacred ceremonial rite into the core of his 1975 album Dadawah, producing verses that fuse polished poetry with unfiltered, bodily force. Abandoning austerity on later recordings such as Promised Land Sounds, he introduced electronic textures, forging a primordial neo-psychedelia matched only by Lee Perry’s own innovations.