Interviews with members of Rasta Samba Gynin

General Note/Comment

• One reel to reel tape. (Copied onto C86-100) Interviews with members of the Rasta group, including group leader and songwriter Yamaba Ye. He discusses each of the eight songs played on T86-56 (C86-99). Other members provide brief bios. The Rasta movement (whose members are called Rastafarians) began with Marcus Garvey's back-to-Africa movement. When the Ethiopian prince Ras Tafari Makkonen was crowned Emperor Haile Selassie I in the 1930s, many in Jamaica looked to him as a messiah, and Rasta was born. It combines elements of African and Jamaican beliefs. Sommers's field notes on the group can be found in S 1628, Box 1, folder 11. Recorded at the Little River Community Center. The Dade Folk Arts Survey was conducted in 1986 by folklorists Tina Bucuvalas, Nancy Nusz and Laurie Sommers in order to identify folk arts and folk artists for the special folklife area at the 34th Annual Florida Folk Festival. The traditions are mainly Haitian, Jamaican, Mexican, Bahamian, Cuban and Jewish and cover a wide range of skills and art forms.