OUR TEAM

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Firstman  is a longtime advocate for the sustainable development of the cultural  industry through the preservation, protection and promotion of cultural  events; community development projects; traditional knowledge, and  indigenous expression. He is one of the original founders of Rastafari  Indigenous Village (RIV); a father, drummer, chanter, singer,  songwriter, and orater.

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 at shared exclusively within the  Rastafari community. In 2021, the RIV team began offering this new  ceremonial experience to guests visiting Jamaica.

Auntie  Arlene is a grandmother, historian, curator, and cultural ambassador.  She is also an accomplished administrator and deeply experienced tourism  professional; who helped develop the initial vision for Rastafari  Indigenous Village— to create financial sustainability and cultural  preservation for the intergenerational Rastafari community. 

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  Izeteh Berhan is a Rastafari artisan, teacher, and mother to four  children. She considers herself an One Love Therapist ™; intuitively  working with the essential elements of fire, earth, water, and wind. She  has been trained as a Reiki Energy Healing Master and has been  practicing for 22 years; been a plant medicine facilitator since 2016;  and is a lifelong student of traditional Rastafari Ital cooking and  healing techniques.

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, aka Robert Roach, is one of the founding members of the  Rastafari Indigenous Village. He is a father; a Nyabinghi drummer; a  dancer; a sculptor; and a painter. His life’s mission has been the  preservation of Rastafari culture through his passion for art and music.

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.

Cardolisa  Wray is a vegan chef, massage therapist, cultural curator, experiential  designer, and entrepreneur. She brings the perspective of the  Millennial generation to the Village, taking the lead on developing and  expanding our wellness offerings. Cardolisa is also the director and  curator of our musical, art, food and event offerings, bringing stars  like Richie Spice, Mighty Diamond and other Jamaican cultural icons to  RIV for special appearances.

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.

Sugah,  aka Robert Farquharson is a founding member of Rastafari Indigenous  Village. He is a father of four children, a drum maker, musician,  farmer, herbalist, and spiritual physician. Sugah came to Rastafari from  early roots in Jamaica’s Revivalist and Kumina traditions, which  preserved African practices in the colonial and post-colonial eras.  These traditions focus on spiritual diagnoses of physical illness, and  on “cutting and clearing” the obstacles in patients’ lives.

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.

Baaba,  aka Alton Parker, is a founding member of the Rastafari Indigenous  Village and father to two children. Like every Villager, he is deeply  committed to the preservation of Rastafari and Jamaican traditions. 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.

King  Toto is one of the most faithful and persistent carriers of ancient  drum making techniques that originated in Africa. He plays and teaches  the Djembe, Fundi, Kete and Bass drums. King Toto crafts each of his  drums exclusively from natural, foraged materials— and a great deal of  love.

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.

Steve DeAngelo is a globally recognized cannabis leader who was dubbed “The Father of the Legal Cannabis Industry” by former Speaker of the California Assembly Willie Brown. As a lifelong activist, author, educator, investor, and entrepreneur, he has spent more than four decades on the front lines of the cannabis reform movement. 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.

Dr. Mark A Braunstein answers the call to healing, medicine, and innovation through his work as a psychiatrist. Mark is a practicing child, adolescent, and adult psychiatrist. His skill sets are an amalgam of psychodynamic theory, traditional psychopharmacology, wilderness, cannabis, psychedelic, psychiatry. 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.