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Watch: The Reggae Film That Should Be Canon

A look back through the blistering lens of Heartland Reggae, where Marley, Tosh, Judy Mowatt, Jacob Miller, and U-Roy lit up the stage while Kingston burned outside.
In the loose canon of reggae films, Heartland Reggae is often passed over in favor of classics like The Harder They Come, Rockers, and Countryman. Released in 1980 and assembled from concert footage shot in 1978, the film doesn’t follow a narrative per se, but the moment in history seeps into every frame. During the opening sequence, the title appears in flames. What follows never cools off.
A lot of the footage comes from the One Love Peace Concert, held at Kingston’s National Stadium in April 1978. Other scenes were filmed in the less industrial, and historically more rural and roots-oriented, town of Savanna-la-Mar, far from Kingston both geographically and in vibe. The edits are loose, raw, and full of energy. The lineup hits hard: Bob Marley, Peter Tosh, Jacob Miller, Judy Mowatt, Dennis Brown, U-Roy, a very young Junior Tucker.
Kingston at the time was in crisis. Neighborhoods had turned into battlegrounds. The PNP and the JLP, Jamaica’s two major political parties, backed armed gangs that controlled different sectors of the city. Shootings were daily. Trust had collapsed. Two years earlier, Marley had been targeted inside his home, just before the Smile Jamaica concert. He survived the assassination attempt, played the show, and left for London. He didn’t come back until his safety was assured.
The One Love Peace Concert marked his return. At the end of his set, Marley called Prime Minister Michael Manley of the socialist-leaning PNP and opposition leader Edward Seaga of the more conservative JLP onstage. He took their hands and raised them together. Flashbulbs fired. The photo ran worldwide. The two leaders wouldn’t appear in public together again until Marley’s funeral in 1981.
The concert only happened because of a truce. Claude Massop, aligned with the JLP, and Aston “Bucky” Marshall, aligned with the PNP, negotiated the agreement from inside prison. It was temporary, but it held long enough for the show to go on. And for a few hours, Jamaica looked in the same direction.
Reggae in 1978 sat at a crossroads. Still grounded in Rastafari, roots rhythms, and militant calm, it was also shifting. Sound systems dominated the streets. Deejays stepped into the spotlight. Dancehall hadn’t taken over yet, but it waited in the wings. Marley would be dead three years later. Tosh would be murdered in Kingston four years after that. Heartland Reggae catches that moment in transition.
Director James P. Lewis doesn’t over-style the footage. The camera lingers in close-up. Smoke curls across the frame. Miller sparks a massive spliff while taunting the police. Tosh steps up in a black, white, and red dashiki, locks eyes with the men in suits, and calls for legalization. Mowatt delivers “Black Woman” with fire and force. Her defiant voice hits with the kind of militancy driving all the performances. Lewis edits the live footage with cutaways to members of the crowd dancing, smoking, laughing, and smoking more. The narration is minimal, delivered by a Rasta in thick Kingston patois.
The film, which you can watch above in its entirety, isn’t smooth or polished. It surges with energy and is rich with color. Claude Massop and Bucky Marshall, the gang leaders who helped forge the concert’s fragile pause, were both dead within two years. The violence returned. Heartland Reggae caught the music of that moment unfiltered, and it still burns.