00:00Author Rudolph Babelorisha Eastman's newest publication, the book Masses a Jambi, Africa and Spirituality, Africa's Biogenetic Memory in the Diaspora,
00:11is being hailed by the Central Bank as important to the culture of masquerade.
00:16The heavily researched piece reflects a deeply entrenched love for the arts, giving readers a sense of identity for something
00:23which Eastman feels is taken for granted annually.
00:27As one Calypsoanian said, if you only sing two words a pathway in a Calypsoanian, that is the sort of
00:36thing that we have to start.
00:38I don't know why they don't teach these things in school. I think that those in authority need to start
00:45to wake up and smell the coffee because they're talking about masks and what the greatest show on earth and
00:53all this sort of thing.
00:55But where is the research? Nobody has been doing the research over the years and that prompted me to start
01:01to do something. Somebody had to do it.
01:03Eastman says mass tends to focus on color and not cultural form, with the exception of a few like Tantan
01:10and Sagaboy and Moco and Jambi.
01:13The author believes the book can help band leaders in that regard. According to Babelorisha, so serious is mass that
01:21there are those who fast before portraying certain characters.
01:25They don't drink with certain characters and the rest. And a very important thing, I've seen it in Brazil, you
01:34rehearse your mass before you go on the road.
01:39You do it. Now we're getting in a shoe box. Right? In a shoe box. It's so much, you know.
01:49Eastman says cultural appropriation in mass is also something that seriously needs addressing.
01:54In giving the feature address at the book launch, Justice Katyanne Waterman-Lachu, who is herself an author, says when
02:01she was in high school,
02:02Carnival was put to her as a copy and satirical form of the European masquerade. There was nothing suggesting otherwise.
02:10Waterman-Lachu acknowledges the time and effort it took Eastman, nearly a decade in fact, to get to the finished
02:16product.
02:18Mass is a Jumbi is a study of the African influence, and in particular the Orisha traditions on steelpan, kaiso,
02:26the masquerade.
02:27It tells of the African biogenetic memory that lives in the calypso genre, in the refrain, rhyme and rhythm, in
02:35the band leaders' inspiration,
02:36in the masking, the kalinda, the stilt walkers, and so much more.
02:41According to Waterman-Lachu, while some may say African culture was blotted out, the literary piece points to it living
02:49in the DNA of the people of the country,
02:51and the spirit of it being ever so present in Carnival.
02:54At page 48 we read,
02:57The use of the sacred sound through the application of voice, drum, horns, and other symbolic adaptations in the new
03:05world was a form of creative spiritual resistance and healing,
03:10and a form of spiritual communication with the spirit world under the guise of entertainment.
03:16The writer also delves into the East Indian factor and the rise of chutney in the music and the mass.
03:24Such is a reminder that we can be many things at the same time.
03:28Meanwhile, the central bank is hoping that the book reaches the eyes of all who are involved in the art
03:35and culture of masquerade.
03:36Alicia Boucher, TV6 News.
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