I Anbassa
Audio Feed
Connecticut Old State House
Hartford
Sept. 9, 2024
“I’m working up a sweat up here,” I Anbassa said between songs at a performance at the Old State House, standing beneath the orange Hartford.com awning that only partially shaded him. After he wiped off his brow, he launched into a rendition of the song “Crazy Baldheads” by Bob Marley. “It’s not a song about guys at the barber shop,” he explained. “It’s about bad people doing bad things and getting rid of them.
Despite the late-summer heat, I Anbassa’s performance never suffered. His gravelly voice channeled joy and love that reggae promotes, and the pain and grief of millions in the African diaspora trying to find some semblance of meaning and home in a world they didn’t ask to be born into.
The “crazy baldheads” are people without locks on their head — capitalists, politicians, and other authority figures trying to exploit the people. On the other side are the adherents of Ras Tafari, the name of Ethiopian President Haile Selassie before he ascended the throne. Selassie is the reincarnation of God on earth, and reggae is the music of Rastafarians as they spread the word about their religion. Their locks, the antithesis of the Baldheads, signifies their commitment to their faith.
The message comes through even clearer in his version of Exodus, a song that ties together the journey of the Israelites out of Egypt with the search for freedom that Jah’s people, the Rastafarians, are on.
After the concert, I Anbassa told me that the guitar isn’t even his main instrument. He plays severals, including the bass, piano and saxophone. He’s a classically trained musician, having earned degrees in music and music education from the University of Bridgeport. That training has given him the versatility to adapt his style to a range of instruments and styles.
“Oh man, when music hits you, you feel no pain. It’s the great line from Bob Marley, you know?” he said, explaining what got him into music over 40 years ago at the age of 5. “It’s like when I felt music, when my mom used to play, when my grandma used to sing, it used to relieve me of stress, relieve me of all kinds of aches and pains or things I might’ve been feeling or going through in my mind and my head. And no conversations had to be had. Music would be put on or my mom would start singing and that would alleviate any kind of stressful situation we had. So that drew me to music as far as healing my soul, healing my spirit and wanting to do that for other people as well.”
I Anbassa’s spiritual connection to his music is reflective of reggae in general, which despite its reputation as stoner music, is often deeply spiritual, political and even religious. It takes a highly trained musician with decades of experience to make religious music sound like something one can enjoy without a second thought during a Tuesday lunch break.
But as the Rastafarians put it, the soldier and the musician are instruments for change, and change might happen even during lunchtime.
NEXT
You can find I Anbassa’s information about his next concert on his Facebook page.
Jamil goes to Real Art Ways to see an exhibit inspired by sun-washed waste.
