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When reggae music first hit it big in the '60s behind forerunners like Bob Marley, it remained controversial because of its common association with Rastafarianism and marijuana use. Decades later, it's a stigma that Mark Mohr, leader and founder of pioneering Christian reggae group Christafari, continues to battle. Interestingly, the opposition doesn't come from conservative Christian types. Rather, it's Caribbean believers who are giving him the hardest time. In this conversation with Christian Music Today, Mohr discusses this cultural dichotomy, along with the history of his band, his ministry vision, and the myth that all reggae musicians do backstage is smoke weed.

Mark Mohr (front and center) leads his eclectic reggae band Christafari to reach people in the Caribbean for Christ.

How did you first become interested in reggae music?

Mark Mohr When I was a kid, I was into every kind of music that you can imagine. But when I went to Jamaica as an early teen, that's when I was truly first introduced to reggae. I fell in love with it. Bob Marley's Legend was the first album I bought. At that time, I was as rebellious as one can be. I was involved in drugs. One of the things that really drew me to reggae was its association with marijuana and its attempts to justify it. [I was drawn to] its attempts to misquote Bible verses and take them out of context to prove that marijuana is OK, which it is not.

A few years later after I truly came to Christ and repented of my sins, I still had the love for the genre. I felt God impressing on my heart to start a reggae band that was based on the world, but to do it for him—in an effort to reach people that were susceptible to falling into the sin that I had fallen into, or that were already there. To become all things to all men.

Reggae isn't so popular. Was it tough to find bandmates who aligned with your vision?

Mohr Oh yeah. From the very beginning, I had to find people that knew little or nothing about reggae and train them. Then, as the years progressed, musicians were replaced by others who played reggae and had come out of the secular industry, come to Christ, and used their skills. Most of the people I'm working with now have been playing reggae or world music for most of their lives. When we first started, we were the only CD you could find in stores, but now there aren't that many CDs in stores, but there's hundreds and hundreds [of reggae CDs] available on the Internet. We're not the only ones doing it anymore.

Reggae music is a niche style, more so within Christian music. How have you managed to stay together so long?

Mohr The lineup of the band has evolved through the years, so it's not like Aerosmith, where it's the same five guys all the time. We're eight people. We're more like a missions team that has the same leaders, but it's evolved each year as time progresses. But the mission still stays the same. The leadership stays the same. It's tough to be a niche within a niche, to be on the outside fringe of both markets, because we don't really have a place.

The gospel market basically says, "That doesn't fit our format." And the general market doesn't really align with what we believe. But when we play for both, when people hear our music without the stigma attached to it—Christianity—they hear it. In the mainstream, they love it, they embrace it. They respect it, even if it's a secular festival. Our first tour was the Reggae Sumfest, which is the biggest secular reggae festival in the world. They can't get enough of it. The problem is the machine of the music industry. They manufacture things that they want everyone to like.

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