Firstman has had a long career as a community organizer and cannabis freedom activist; serving as a charter member of the Jamaican Ganja Task Force; as the Chair of the first Ganja Advisory Committee to the Government of Jamaica; and as a Co Founder of the Rastafari and Grass Roots Growers Association (RAGGA).

Firstman has been certified by the United Nations as an expert in the 2003 Intangible Cultural Heritage Convention and the 2005 Cultural Diversity Convention; and by the State of Oregon as a Trainer for indigenous practices surrounding visionary plants (pending). In 2016, Firstman and the Rastafari Indigenous Village were introduced to ayahuasca, psilocybin mushrooms and other sacred plants by MesoAmerican and South American medicine people.

Immediately thereafter, RIV became the first traditional Rastafari community to incorporate these sacred plants into their own spiritual practice, expressing traditional beliefs with new insights; and creating a new, unique and very powerful Rastadelic ™ expression of psychedelic culture and spirituality. For the first five years, this practice was shared exclusively within the Rastafari community. In 2021, the RIV team began offering this new ceremonial experience to guests visiting Jamaica.

Arlene is a passionate guardian of both the Village and of wider Rastafari and Jamaican art, culture, and traditions; faithfully and carefully supporting an extensive network of the island’s most talented traditional artisans. She is an original founder of the Village, a wise woman, and the person we most look to for direction— and when necessary correction.

Arlene was raised and started her career in London, UK. She received her undergraduate degree in Education and Sociology from the University of London, and her Masters in Arts and Heritage Management from the University of North London. From the earliest days, she focused on empowering young people, spending the first five years of her career as a community organizer and youth center manager.

Arlene then returned to Jamaica, and began her rapid rise through the ranks of the tourism industry. Building from an initial position as an Air Jamaica customer services agent; Arlene moved on to positions with the Jamaican Tourist Board, the Jamaica Tourism Action Plan, and the Tourism Product Development Company— where she accepted roles as Western Regional Standards Manager, and Director of Craft Development. Arlene’s tourism career has also included time working with the Rose Hall group, and the Jamaica Promotions and Investment Company. Arlene’s vast and varied experience, along with her solid judgment, has been invaluable to the preservation and growth of the Village.

Queen I. has embraced the preservation of indigenous healing techniques within the Rastafari and wider Jamaican society, as a personal mission. She knows the healing properties of almost every plant in the garden, and how to prepare and administer them; and assists others seeking healing, as a part of her own healing process. At her workshop in the Village, Queen handcrafts a wide variety of skin-care products from indigenous Jamaican plants and herbs and also offers her adaptation of traditional herbal bush-baths.

Queen I. attended the Edna Manley College of the Visual and Performing Arts, and was an English teacher at the prestigious Jamaica College, a traditional high school. She was one of the earliest employees at the groundbreaking IRIE FM radio station, the first station to play reggae music around the clock. Her work there as a record librarian gave Queen I. deep exposure to a wide range of reggae music, and helped guide her to Rastafari livity (way of life). Among other achievements at IRIE FM, Queen I. was an original pioneer of using Jamaican patois in advertising announcements— becoming a recognized and beloved voice in every part of the island.

King Tebah has dedicated over a decade to the Rasta Village Band as the lead drummer, and has traveled around the globe to countries such as Germany, China, Mexico and Cuba to share the message of his Rastafari and African roots through music and dance.

Since 2010, King Tebah has worked as a tour guide within the Rasta Village Community, where he continues to educate guests with drum and dancing lessons. Many of the inspirational murals decorating Rastafari Indigenous Village are King Tebah’s works of art, and his drumming plays a central role in our sacred medicine ceremonies. His performing group, Prince Tebah and the Sons of Thunder, opened the first ever Reggae SunSplash in 1979; and played with Bob Marley, Peter Tosh, and other reggae legends.

In the kitchen, Cardolisa carries classic Jamaican cuisine into the future with plant-based ingredients, while faithfully preserving traditional Ital recipes. Ital—from vital—food emphasizes fresh, organic fruits and vegetables. It uses no animal products, processed ingredients, or preservatives. Cardolisa takes these traditions, pairs them with ingredients mostly grown or made in the Village, and turns them into delicious and nutritious works of art.

When not at the Village, Cardolisa can be found managing her Montego Bay catering business, Vegan to Rahtid, serving a local and international clientele.

They use prayers, chants, incense, and the distinctive Kumina style of drumming to call in ancestors and higher elements like the wind and the trees. He is one of very few people island-wide who preserve the culture of drum making by hand, and is especially skilled in making the Djembe drum of West Africa.

Sugah generously shares his knowledge with visitors and youth to preserve and promote this disappearing African tradition. Sugah is known as a prodigious farmer who fiercely protects indigenous plants, and stands on his belief that for every illness, a remedy can be found in nature.

His special area of focus is the Kumina tradition that has its roots in the Congo and Uganda regions of Africa. One feature of Kumina ceremonies is their ability to induce a unique form of consciousness known as myal.

Myal consciousness features a form of spirit invocation sometimes described as spirit possession by outside observers. It is characterized by a state of intense spiritual exaltation that can endow super physical powers.

Baaba’s deep immersion, long roots, and artistry in these traditions— and his dedication to preserving them— have been critical to advancing a key aspect of the Villages core mission: to genuinely share Jamaican traditions and the authentic Rastafari livity with outside visiting guests. Along with Sugah, he is one of the pioneers of RIV’s distinctive new drumming style, a combination of Nyabinghi and Kumina styles that we call Nyakum or Kumabinghi.

His drums have carried the message of One Love and I-nity to the far corners of the planet, sending out vibrations of the same patient strength King Toto exhibits in his workshop every day. He is also a revered bush doctor whose famous Ramp Ruff Root & Bark Tonic (™) enlivens the circulatory system— and is reputedly responsible for the creation of many babies.

Most of all, King Toto is a close student of life, dropping precious pearls of wisdom as he carefully and deliberately chisels away, carving another piece of wood into an instrument of change. When you get a drum from Toto, you don’t just get a drum— he puts a little piece of himself into every creation.

His most notable business achievements include co-founding Harborside—one of the first six dispensaries licensed in the United States—now a publicly-traded company on the Canadian Securities Exchange; Steep Hill Laboratory, the first cannabis analytics company; Arcview Group, the first dedicated cannabis investment network; and Last Prisoner Project, dedicated to fighting criminal injustice and reimagining drug policy.

Steve is the author of The Cannabis Manifesto and an originator of the wellness approach to understanding cannabis. He played a key role in the passage of Initiative 59, Washington DC’s medical cannabis law; the passage of Prop 64, California’s adult-use law; and successfully defended multiple legal attempts by US federal authorities to shutter the doors of Harborside.

Steve’s creative projects include a Discovery Channel mini-series, Weed Wars; a weekly show, Ask Steve DeAngelo, on greenflowermedia.com; Discovery Channel mini-series, Growing Belushi; and host of the Radio Free Cannabis Podcast.

He earned his medical degree in 1997, completed a residency in general psychiatry and a fellowship in child/adolescent psychiatry. After years of on-the-ground psychiatry work, Mark began to see the deficits present in contemporary models of treatment. The psychopharmacologic focus left patients fundamentally unchanged, dependent, and struggling with side effects.

In 2002, with this knowledge in tow, Mark relocated to Colorado, intent on expanding his practice to include cannabis & wilderness therapy. Through his concurrent work in both fields, Mark has pioneered the practice of wilderness psychiatry & has kept an eclectic private practice for more than 20 years.

He has been involved with psychedelics for more than 30 years and is now seen as a visionary in the space working on safely increasing access and efficacy. He studied ketamine assisted psychotherapy under his mentor Dr. Phil Wolfson and is now blessed to be able to teach alongside him.