Let My People Stink

(EXTRA CREEM, at great expense of time and health, has rpanaged to get into the Rasta barrio in Birmingham and mix with the inhabitants to file this photo essay on the real hard-core . Rastafarians. Few people know that the original Rastas did not come from . Jamaica, or even Ethiopia, but a twomile area north of Detroit bounded by Woodward Ave., Maple Road and Brown Street in Birmingham. Our photographer and editor mixed with the Rastas, won their confidence, and reported upon their strange and often exotically appealing behavior, in an effort to understand just another of Detroit's unique ethnic communities — their problems, their ideals...Read it and enjoy, enjoy.—Ed.)

Extra: Why do you live in Birmingham? Mungo: Lots of rich people. We're rich too, but we like to pretend that we're poor, so we come here to live instead of going down to live in Jamaica. We go down to Jamaica, take our American Express cards, smoke a lot of ganja, hang out with the local black people. No black people in Birmingham, that's one of the advantages of being a Rasta in Birmingham. We grow our hair out in long dreadlocks; they don't laugh at us here the way they do in Jamaica. Also lots of boutiques where you can buy clothes and stuff. Keep up, you know? That's tough in Jamaica.