The Abyssinians  

From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia

Jump to: navigation, search

Related e

Wikipedia
Wiktionary
Wiki Commons
Tumblr
Wikisource
YouTube
Shop

Featured:
A Scheme for abolishing all Words is one of the wittiest and smartest comments on semantics. (Illustration: extreme close-up from the movie "The Big Swallow" (1901), produced and directed by James Williamson (1855-1933)
Enlarge
A Scheme for abolishing all Words is one of the wittiest and smartest comments on semantics. (Illustration: extreme close-up from the movie "The Big Swallow" (1901), produced and directed by James Williamson (1855-1933)

The Abyssinians are a Jamaican roots reggae group, famous for their close harmonies and promotion of the Rastafari movement in their lyrics.

The vocal trio was originally formed in 1969 by Bernard Collins, Donald Manning and Linford Manning.

Their most famous songs are "Satta Massagana" and "Y Mas Gan", both of which are delivered partially in the Ethiopian language of Amharic. This language is sacred to Rastafarians as they believe the last Emperor of Ethiopia, Haile Selassie, to be an avatar of God.

Another crucial track is "Declaration of Rights", whose instrumental version (the "riddim") has been reprised many times during the years by many other roots reggae artists.

The Abyssinians should not be confused with the reggae, rocksteady, and ska group The Ethiopians, though the two bands' names are synonyms when used outside the context of band names.

[edit]

Discography


Unless indicated otherwise, the text in this article is either based on Wikipedia article "The Abyssinians" or another language Wikipedia page thereof used under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License; or on original research by Jahsonic and friends. See Art and Popular Culture's copyright notice.

Retrieved from "http://www2.artandpopularculture.com/The_Abyssinians"
Personal tools
Metas