The Rastafarian community in Malawi hosts prominent Rastafarian elder and Jamaican musician Ras Ivi Tafari for two days from tomorrow.
One of the organisers, Richard Chisala, said Ras Tafari, among others, is expected to give lectures at University of Malawi and Malawi University of Science and Technology.
“Ras Tafari is currently in South Africa but is coming on Wednesday. We are going to welcome him at Chileka Airport [in Blantyre]. He is known globally because of his association with Nyahbinghi chants which are integral to Rastafarian Sabbath gatherings,” he said.
“He contributed to the establishment of the Rastafarian community and composed over 100 chants [hymns] which we use in our tabernacles [prayer houses],” he said.
Ras Jerefaya from the National Nyahbinghi Council said after his arrival at Chileka
Airport, Ras Tafari will go to Chileka Tabernacle for prayers before starting his engagements.
He said the Rastafarian elder lives in Jamaica, but they invited him after learning that he was in South Africa.
According to Lost History Foundation, Ras Tafari played a pivotal role during the Centenary Celebration of Emperor Haile Selassie’s birth on July 23 1992. Alongside other Rastafarians from Jamaica and United Kingdom such as Congo Rocky, Mama Baby-I, Ma-Ashanti, Sis Faye and Bongo Solo, he participated in the celebration at Shashamane, Ethiopia.
This event took place on the land granted by Emperor Haile Selassie in 1948 to all black people of the West (through an organisation called Ethiopia World Federation) as a gesture of appreciation
for their support during Ethiopia’s liberation from Italian occupation (1936-1941).
The celebration at Shashamane, saw the establishment of the first Nyahbinghi tabernacle in Ethiopia which became permanent during the 104th celebration of Emperor Haile Selassie’s birth in 1996.
Ras Tafari documented the celebrations’ activities in his 1993 publication, Centenary Trod to Ethiopia. This publication, alongside the Nyahbinghi Guidelines and a booklet of 100 chants which he released in 1994 contributed to the global spread of Rastafari consciousness.
“The centenary celebration of Emperor Haile Selassie’s birth in July 1992 at Shashamane had a ripple effect in Malawi. It inspired some youths to embrace Rastafari during the country’s transition from a one-party State to multiparty democracy (1992-1994),” said the statement in part.
Ras Tafari is the second prominent Jamaican Rastafarian to visit Malawi after Burning Spear in October last year
