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With his copper pendant of Africa and large knot of dreadlocks, 24-year-old Nisi is the very picture of a Rastafarian reggae lover. Naturally he’s also one of Jakarta’s biggest Bob Marley fans.

“Bob represents purity, and the life he lived is enough guidance for me,” said Nisi, adding that every day that goes by without smoking marijuana is a day wasted.

Reggae isn’t ordinarily thought of as a local phenomenon, but it is a phenomenon that can be seen here.

On Wednesday and Friday nights, men wearing crocheted beanies with dreadlocks attached can be found jumping and gyrating alongside hippies in bell-bottom pants and tie-dyed T-shirts at BB’s Reggae and Blues Club on Jalan Sidoarjo, near Menteng Plaza in Central Jakarta. And last Friday night was no different.

“I come here to listen to reggae music because I feel connected,” said Uli, a percussionist in a reggae band.

The interior of BB’s is musty and dark, and you can smell that smell .

“There is no reggae music without ganja,” said a reggae club patron, who asked not to be named.

“You must get high and forget all your worries.”

A mural of palm trees, beaches and flags adorns the walls and Rastafarianism’s colors of red, gold and green are everywhere to be seen in the club, and the music playing perfectly recreates the atmosphere of a reggae jam night in Marley’s hometown of Trenchtown, Jamaica.

“BB’s is our Trenchtown, and our stories are the same: no jobs, poverty and a bad government,” Uli said.

“Music helps us overcome our suffering.”

Many of BB’s patrons identify with the struggles of living in a poverty-stricken community, as Marley did.

The subjects of his music — poverty, suffering and crime — expressed his frustrations with the government’s lack of concern for the poor.

“We live in the same Babylonian system that Bob sang about. There is also government brainwashing, corruption and false hope,” one BB’s patron said, also asking not to be identified.

Reggae is a musical form that began in Jamaica during the late 1960s, and Rastafarianism is a sect espousing peace and love that spread throughout Jamaica during the 20th century.

Rastas believe that Haile Selassie, the last emperor of the Ethiopian monarchy, was the incarnation of Jesus Christ.

Their beliefs are enhanced through sacramental rites, which include not cutting their hair and smoking ganja. Yet, strict Rastafarians must avoid alcohol, and also follow a holistic, vegan diet, called Ital.

Growing up in the 1990s in Kingston, the island capital of Jamaica, my mother was still under reggae’s spell. However, the music didn’t really speak to younger-generation Jamaicans like me. It felt more like a relic of the ’70s — long before I was born.

On Saturday mornings, when I was about 10, my mother would have the radio going full blast most of the time. When A Bob Marley song like “Three Little Birds” came on, she’d move about six inches away from the radio and start to shake and shimmy, singing at the top of her lungs.

I didn’t mind, because it reminded me of how she’d cut loose from her own strict, conservative upbringing. “I wish singers today would take a page out of Bob’s book,” my mother often used to say. “Reggae is what I call good music — but those days have gone.”

Bob Marley, who died of cancer at the age of 36 in 1981, remains the most famous and influential reggae artist. Whenever his name is mentioned, the phrase “one love, one heart” is almost sure to follow.

He continues to be revered by today’s reggae performers, including Indonesian reggae artists Mbah Surip and Tony-Q, as well as a number of local reggae bands.

But, in Jamaica, reggae music has been taken over by dancehall music, a genre that originated a decade later. For many Jamaicans born in the 1980s and after, reggae is little more than an historical milestone for the country.

“Foreigners appreciate reggae music more than local people,” said Tia Gardener, a 23-year-old Jamaican partygoer, via a social networking site.

Reggae made inroads into America, Europe and eventually the rest of the world through overseas performances by some of the forerunners of modern reggae — particularly Bob Marley and his band the Wailers.

“The Harder They Come,” the 1972 Jamaican movie starring Jimmy Cliff, also helped popularize the vibrant music style.

Tia said that if you wanted to hear reggae music in Jamaica, “you’d have to go to tourist places such as Montego Bay and Ocho Rios, but for sure not Kingston.”

It’s an unpleasant reality to accept as a Jamaican, but after visiting Indonesia and seeing the influence reggae music has had on young Indonesians, I had to agree with Tia: Indonesian reggae fans are definitely more pumped about the musical style and culture than a lot of young Jamaicans.

I would have loved my mother to have seen some of these Indonesian reggae artists performing. On that Friday night at BB’s, I was stunned by the high quality of the music.

The crowd exploded in a frenzy when Monkey Booths, an Indonesian reggae band, took the stage.

The first soulful note from the lead vocalist raised goosebumps on my arms, as the sounds of the keyboard, bass guitar, electronic drums, djembe and trumpet melted into a true Jamaican sound.

Less convincing were the patrons, who, despite their obvious passion for reggae music, wielded accents as thick and inauthentic as their short-term dreadlocks.

A man holding his beer mug like a microphone, began reciting words from one of Bob Marley’s songs: “Roots rock reggae, this a reggae music […] play I some music, this a reggae music.”

Many reggae fans here are also confused about the concepts of reggae and Rastafarianism. While both concepts are closely related, they are not transposable — the former is a musical form and the latter is a religious movement.

“Many religions have secondary characteristics that are shared — for example promoting peace and love,” said Mohamed, an Islamic leader in Kampung Melayu, Bukit Duri, South Jakarta.

“However, the most important thing is the basis of the belief system and that is in the God.

“The mere fact that Rastafarianism beliefs and practices are not in line with the Holy Koran means that there is no way one can be both a devout Muslim and a follower of Rastafarianism,” Mohamed said.

Reggae fan Renz, however, believes that having a head full of dreadlocks and a love of ganja are essential for a real Rasta.

“I’m a Muslim, but a Rasta, too,” he said.

While it is possible for someone to love reggae music and not be a Rastafarian, being both a Muslim and a Rastafarian sounds difficult.

But Ronny, a keyboardist in a reggae, thinks it can be done.

“Reggae means love and that’s what the world needs, whether you’re a Muslim or Christian” he said.