Tassa

Tassa band Trinidad and Tobago Sweet Tassa (2012)

In Trinidad and Tobago, Guyana, Suriname, Jamaica, and other parts of the Caribbean, the term tassa refers to a drumming ensemble drawn from an amalgamation of various North Indian folk drumming traditions, most importantly dhol-tasha, a style that remains popular today in many parts of India and Pakistan.[1] Beginning in the 1830s and lasting until 1918, dhol-tasha was taken around the world by Indian workers, mostly from present-day Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, enmeshed in a global scheme of indentured labor in British, French, and Dutch territories.[2]

  1. ^ Wolf, Richard (2017). The Voice in the Drum: Music, Language, and Emotion in Islamicate South Asia. University of Illinois Press.
  2. ^ Tinker, Hugh (1974). A New System of Slavery: The Export of Indian Labour Overseas 1830-1920. Oxford University Press.