Shashamane to honour Bunny Wailer on his birthday

Reggae icon Bunny Wailer will be honoured by the Jamaican/Rastafarian community in Shashamane, Ethiopia, on his birthday, April 10, as part of the Rastafari Month celebrations in that country.

This event honours the reggae legend, who died at age 73 on March 2, 2021, as well as Donald ‘Flippins’ Leach, a Jamaican stalwart of Ethiopia’s Rastafari repatriation movement who passed away in 2012. The event, a joint Bunny Wailer and Flippins tribute, will be held at the Lily and Vernon Leach Lounge in that city.

“Bunny Wailer has a significant link to Shashamane. Back in the days when I came to Shashamane, I remember Bunny contacted his good friend, Brother Flippins, and they discussed Bunny’s desire [to] return to live in Ethiopia,” Sydney Salmon, chairman of the Jamaican Rastafarian Development Community (JRDC), said.

Salmon, originally from East Kingston, migrated to the US in his early 20s and worked as a banker. After 15 years in New York, he relocated to Ethiopia, where he has lived since 2001. He is the headlining act at the tribute with the Imperial Majestic Band. They are set to perform songs such as Babylon Falling, Ethiopia Calling, Oh Lord, Trees, Give To You, and selections from his latest album, Andromeda.

Other performers include Orthodox Issachar, Teddy Dan, Iron Gad, Pat Joseph, and the Melody Sisters.

“Bunny made it clear that he had full intention to return to Ethiopia and spend the rest of his days. He asked us to link with the Ministry of Tourism with what he could offer to Ethiopia, and we did. We were waiting for a response when Flippins died,” Salmon explained.

Once Flippins passed, those repatriation plans appeared to be shelved for a decade, during which Bunny also passed. However, certain seeds, once planted, always tend to grow. “The seed was sown from then. Bunny Wailer spoke highly of Shashamane, and we kept that in our hearts, and we never let it go,” Salmon said. “The link came back when the Ethio-Africa Diaspora Union Millennium Council (EADUMC), aka Rastafari Millennium Council, reached out to push a document to CARICOM, which was visiting (Ethiopia) at the time, and we put together a 10-point plan to present to the African Union. We have been working together since then, after signing a memorandum of understanding.”

Bunny Wailer was a founding member of the Rastafarian Millennium Council, an umbrella organisation based in Jamaica that works to unify the various “mansions” (groups) of the Rastafari movement around repatriation with a mandate on intellectual property rights.

Salmon disclosed that there are approximately 600 Jamaicans and their families living in Ethiopia. Shashamane is a community where elders, musicians, and families maintain a Rastafarian way of life. Renowned as a spiritual home for the Rastafarian community, often referred to as ‘Jamaica in Africa’, it was established in the 1940s via a land grant from Emperor Haile Selassie. April is widely recognised as Rastafari Month, which Salmon reasoned, is the most auspicious time to host an event of this magnitude.

“The seeds came back at the right time ... he and Flippins share the same birth month, so we decided to honour them together at this time. Flippins’ children are here. We are keeping it at their yard. They have a lounge where we will do the celebration. This will create a focus [on] the rest of Rasta globally that he made the transition and his presence is here in Ethiopia based on his stated intention from years ago and his legacy,” Salmon added.

Funds generated by the concert will promote the EADUMC-JRDC MOU to boost funding of health coverage for Rastafarian elders, finance the running of a school and other areas of development in the community and assist the Leach family.

PROMISED LAND

Shashamane holds profound significance as a ‘Promised Land’ for the Rastafari movement, acting as a physical link between Africa and the Caribbean Diaspora.

“Reggae music serves as the cultural, spiritual, and artistic soundtrack to this repatriation movement, connecting life in Shashamane with the broader Rastafarian message of liberation and return to ‘Zion’,” said music executive Maxine Stowe, a founding member of the EADUMC Rastafari Council.

Stowe described the tribute as a “full-circle moment” for the Rastafari movement, reflecting Bunny Wailer’s enduring connection to Shashamane. Throughout his life, Bunny Wailer was affiliated with several Rastafari organisations and served as an elder in the Nyabinghi Order. He was also baptised in the Ethiopian Orthodox Church alongside Bob Marley and Peter Tosh.

Many of the Jamaicans in Shashamane are members of the Twelve Tribes of Israel, which was founded by Vernon ‘Prophet Gad’ Carrington in Trench Town in 1968, where music and the Jah Love sound system supported repatriation. Artistes like Bob Marley, Dennis Brown, Freddie McGregor, and Sugar Minott powered the movement.

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