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Nyabingi Medley

Group of Maroons of Accompong
Audio
Nyabingi Medley
Nyahbinghi (previously Nyabingi) is a culturally significant and uniquely Rasta music featuring a "heartbeat rhythm" played on a three-part drum ensemble that includes the bass, funde and "repeater" and typically accompanied by singing and sometimes dancing. Drawing upon buru and Kumina--two strong African-Jamaican drumming traditions, Nyahbinghi emerged among Rastafarians in the camps and 'yards' of Kingston during the 1950s. Over time it has become a pan-African Jamaican style, influencing Jamaican pop styles from ska to reggae and on to the globalized worldbeat. On this 1991 recording, young Jamaican men play traditional Accompong Maroon goombay, side and bass drums rather than the characterictic Rastafarian analogues noted above.