Michelle Loubon

The pul­sat­ing rhythms of Mal­ick Tas­sa Drum­mers have en­ter­tained crowds in T&T, the Caribbean and North Amer­i­ca. There was more cel­e­bra­tion in the camp when they cre­at­ed his­to­ry by be­com­ing the first tas­sa group to re­ceive a Na­tion­al Award-Hum­ming­bird Medal (Sil­ver). Bask­ing in the group's achieve­ment, artis­tic di­rec­tor Kr­ish­na Soogrim Ram said: "We are ho­n­oured to re­ceive a na­tion­al award for the first time. "We are the first tas­sa group to achieve this feat. The boys are ho­n­oured and proud." To date, Ram boast­ed, they have played at Panora­ma and ac­com­pa­nied ca­lyp­so­ni­ans David Rud­der and Denyse Plum­mer and oth­er ca­lyp­so­ni­ans.

They even per­formed with the No­ble Dou­glas Dance Com­pa­ny and Shiv Shak­ti Dance Com­pa­ny. Mas­men Pe­ter Min­shall and Bri­an Mc­Far­lane have en­list­ed their tal­ents. They have played be­fore Mar­tini­quan and Brazil­ian au­di­ences. Ram boast­ed one of his mile­stones was work­ing along­side the late Pat Bish­op and the Ly­di­an Singers. He said: "She was a great la­dy. It was an ho­n­our to work with her. She has done a tremen­dous amount of work for cul­ture." Ram ex­tend­ed ku­dos to cul­tur­al am­bas­sador Nor­van Fuller­ton whom he de­scribed as "Mal­ick Tas­sa Drum­mers' god­fa­ther." "Nor­van is elat­ed the tas­sa men got an award," said Ram.

"Plas­tic skin tas­sa"

Ram said he was forced to in­no­vate and cre­ate the "plas­tic skin tas­sa." Orig­i­nal­ly, the tas­sa skin was made from goat's skin. While on tour, they could not grav­i­tate to­ward the small bon­fire that kept the mu­si­cal in­stru­ments heat­ed. Ram said: "When we are stay­ing at ho­tels or in coun­tries un­ac­cus­tomed to the "tas­sa cul­ture", we can't light fires. I have had to use hair dry­ers in Man­hat­tan to heat up the tas­sa." Ram felt he had to make an in­ter­ven­tion. The top is from plas­tic."

He added: "I made the base of the tas­sa from teak wood. I even start­ed to make the tas­sa from alu­minum. "I used gas tanks that are used for the air con­di­tion units." Pat­ting him­self on the back, he said: "You try some­thing and it comes through well. It is hard work and crazi­ness." Ram is pleased as punch. Tas­sa groups are lin­ing up for plas­tic skin tas­sa. "Every­body is fol­low­ing the plas­tic tas­sa."

Nor­van Fuller­ton com­ments

Com­ment­ing on their feat, pro­gramme di­rec­tor of Best Vil­lage Nor­van Fuller­ton said: "They nor­mal­ly per­formed with Mal­ick Folk Per­form­ers. They per­formed with All Stars Steel­band. They are cre­ative and in­no­v­a­tive. Ram must be com­pli­ment­ed for cre­at­ing the "syn­thet­ic tas­sa drum. On­ly a Tri­ni would think of some­thing like that."