Drumming Recalls Centuries-old Link Between Caribbean, Africa
August 30, 2013
Vivien Jones stands behind the drummers waving the Jamaican flag at the Jerusalem Sacred Music Festival. (Courtesy Hanan Bar Assulin/Jerusalem Season of Culture)
Throughout the ages and around the globe, drumming has been used for communication, entertainment, and prayer. That is especially true for the Rastafarians who performed at this year's Sacred Music Festival in Jerusalem.
If you haven’t heard of Nyabinghi drumming, you are not alone. It is sacred music, played as a communal meditative practice in the Rastafarian religion of Jamaica, and rarely performed in public.
As Jamaican reggae star Vivien Jones explains, it is a centuries-old link between the Caribbean and Africa.
“That's been in Jamaica since we were taken there as slaves," Jones said. "Slave master used to bang the drums. So the drums were there from the time we landed on that island, the drums were being played. So it was African drumming … all the way from ancient Ethiopia. All it did was it traveled in a slave ship to Jamaica and then it bloomed and blossomed again in Jamaica.”
It is a form of music passed down from generation to generation. Drummer Bonjo Iyapingi Noah started early.
"I grew up playing within the church," he said. "Before the elders would come up and play, we the children we have to play. We learn this all from the elders. The elders sit us down and they teach us what to sing.”
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