well me, i grew up in the 80s around rastas and "move" aka the africa family (love ramona to death) then at 19 went to my 1st rainbow gathering
so all i ever knew was natural dreads. i never knew anyone "created dreads" i remember 1 day a woman on the street suggested bees wax to help my beard start to dread.. so i went and bought some, literally just touched it to my beard in 1 spot the size of my fingertip.. and spent months and months picking it out trying to get rid of it
so that was my 1st experience with the concept of made dreads
then, later 90s i guess it was and the internet became a thing ..and i heard about interlocking (and how it made dreads fall off at the roots) started seeing dread kits, and hearing stories of how wax is a better alternative then toothpaste, peantbutter, and, glue.
it took years of educating people n te dangers of wax, ten crochet became an alternative to wax.. even more harmful
so, while rainbow gatherings still tend to be 100% ..or at least 99,999% natural dreadlocks, the internet with 10 million websites pushing harmful methods, theres only about 3 sites pushing the truth, ours being biggest. with about 1.3 million pages.
so we have a lot of work to do to educate people. prevent large scale destruction, and preserve what dreads have meant throughout the ages.
nowadays rainbow gatherings are 1 of the last remaining places where 100% or nearly so, of the dreads are natural and/or spiritual. even in jaimaica salons are starting to corrupt what people think of dreads. while true rastas don't buy into it a new breed of newly converted rastas see dreadlocks not as the result of a lifestyle and belief based choice, but instead something they buy to show off that they are rastas.
in the past rasas did not need dreads to be rasta, now they don't have to believe in rastafarii to be considered rasta they just have to have dreads and an accent.
how many salon stories have we heard that start with "i went to a rasta who crocheted my hair"
which goes completely against the entire reason rastas dread to begin with.
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My new book Ban The Taboo Vol 1