Mortimo Planno Live!

http://www.frostillustrated.com/news/2006/0405/News/009.html

Influential Rastafarian leader dies in Kingston
By Braden Ruddy

Mortimo Planno

(GIN)-Mortimo Planno, a philosopher and writer regarded as one of the key figures in the development of Rastafarianism, died March 6 at the University of the West Indies in Kingston. His death was a result of a thyroid condition complicated by other health ailments.

He was 76 years old.

Planno was one of the most influential leaders in the development of Rastafarianism, a religious sect whose adherents view Africa as the promised land, former Ethiopian king Haile Selassie as god, and fuse Judaism, Christianity, and anticolonial theory together.

Largely ostracized by mainstream Jamaican society, the movement grew into a structured religion, largely under Planno's influence. His autobiography, "The Earth's Most Strangest Man: The Rastafarian," is widely regarded as one of the most comprehensive theoretical Rastafarian works.

"He is perhaps most of all, the Rastafari ecumenical leader extraordinaire as his command predated and transcended the differences represented within the various mansion/houses (organizations) of Rastafari," said Jalani Niaah, coordinator of the Rastafari Studies at the University of the West Indies.

Planno was born in September 1929 in Cuba. In the early 1930s, he came to Jamaica with his parents and three older siblings. He grew up in the "Back-o Wall" area of Western Kingston.

A founding member of the Rastafari M o v e m e n t Association, Planno was selected in 1961 as a member of the Jamaican delegation that traveled throughout Africa to explore the possibilities of repatriation.

During Haile Selassie's historic 1966 trip to in Jamaica, Planno was among the selected Rastafari Elders who met with the Ethiopian king.

Planno also held a fellowship in folk philosophy at the University of the West Indies

After Selassie's Jamaica visit, Bob Marley became Planno's most famous student and eventually Rastafarianism's most recognized ambassador. Planno even wrote a song for Marley entitled "Selassie Is The Chapel," which has become one of the most sought-after recordings of Marley's career.

Planno is survived by four children and a younger brother.