The blazing New Orleans sun beats down and weighs on you like a blanket as you dance heavily to the thick island grooves of reggae at this year's Reggae Riddums Festival. Many of the bobbing and swaying bodies around you are wearing the African colors-red, gold, black and green -- or t-shirts with Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, tie-dyed Bob Marleys, the occasional dashiki, and hair in dreadlocks.

The thick smell of marijuana drifts past as the music bounces off your bones. Short staccato s...