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So socially activist have reggae lyrics become that they were a highly effective political weapon in the last Jamaican election in February 1972, when Michael Manley, head of the opposition People's National Party, hired Reggae Singer-Composer Clancy Eccles as his campaign consultant. First Eccles converted the reggae hit Better Must Come ("Let the power fall, beat down Babylon!") into the party anthem. Next he supplied disc jockeys with rhythmic campaign slogans. Then he assembled a morality play, casting Manley as Joshua—rewriting the last line of his own reggae song Rod of Correction and substituting the name of Prime Minister Hugh Shearer in "King Pharaoh's army was drownded."
In self-defense, Shearer banned political songs from the radio, but sound systems men carried them to the villages. No one knows, of course, how significant their message was to the electorate, but the fact is that the Prime Minister was roundly defeated to the accompaniment of a reggae rhythm.