Negus explores the convergence of history, myth and magic through the complex and contradictory legacies of Ethiopia's last emperor. In Italy, during Mussolini's fascist rule, Selassie I was presented as a black demon, justifying Italy's invasion of Ethiopia. A moment in time that coincided with the peak of Rastafari in Jamaica, which acclaimed Selassie as its living God and the risen black Christ. Negus feeds on the vacuum between these two irreconcilable realities. To all this must be added the double presence of Lee "Scratch" Perry: he looms as a spiritual ghost over the Black Ark, his former recording studio in Kingston that burned down in the '80s, and as the master of a ritual fire ceremony in Italy to re-invoke the spirit of the last emperor of Ethiopia.