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Brown Sugar · #1 10th August 2005, 12:28 PM

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Sinead O'Connor Goes Reggae in Jamaica

08/09/2005 9:44 AM, AP

KINGSTON, Jamaica (AP) — Irish pop singer Sinead O'Connor says she has found solace in Jamaican music and the Rastafarian faith after recording her first reggae album on the Caribbean island.

"To me, I have not made a reggae record, I've made a Rasta record," O'Connor said Monday night at a Kingston launch party for "Thrown Down Your Arms," scheduled to be released in September.

The album includes covers of classic reggae protest songs such as Burning Spear's "Throw Down Your Arms," Peter Tosh's "Downpressor Man" and Bob Marley's "War."

"War" was Marley's interpretation of a speech by late Ethiopian emperor Haile Selassie, who Rastafarians worshipped as their living god.

"It is my way of expressing gratitude to the Rasta people, because I am one of those human beings who would not be alive today if it was not for the teachings of Rastafari," the Dublin-born singer said.

O'Connor, 38, says she discovered roots-reggae while living in London during the 1980s.

She recorded the album in Kingston earlier this year with several top Jamaican musicians, including drummer Sly Dunbar, bassist Robbie Shakespeare, guitarist Mikey Chung and trombonist Nambo Robinson.

The album will be released by O'Connor's Chocolate and Vanilla label.

O'Connor is best known for her close-cropped hair and her 1991 international hit, "Nothing Compares 2 U."

Her career has frequently been marked by scandal.

Ordained as a priest by a splinter Catholic group, she tore up a photo of Pope John Paul II on the television program Saturday Night Live in 1992. She also refused to perform at a show in New Jersey because the Star Spangled Banner was played before her appearance. O'Connor has recorded sporadically in the last five years. Her last CD, "She Who Dwells in the Secret Place of the Most High Shall Abide Under the Shadow of the Almighty," was released in 2003.