Shashamane to honor Bunny Wailer with birthday tribute in Ethiopia

Shashamane turned Bunny Wailer’s birthday into a statement of living Rastafari history, not just a memorial. In the Ethiopian town long called Jamaica in Africa, the tribute folded Bunny’s name into Rastafari Month and placed his legacy inside the place that gave repatriation real meaning.

The gathering took place at the Lily and Vernon Leach Lounge, where the Jamaican and Rastafarian community in Shashamane came together for a joint tribute to Bunny Wailer and Donald Flippins Leach, the Jamaican stalwart of Ethiopia’s Rastafari repatriation movement who died in 2012. That pairing mattered. Bunny was being honored alongside a man who helped build the repatriation path that made Shashamane such a symbolic home for Jamaicans in Ethiopia.

Sydney Salmon of the Jamaican Rastafarian Development Community said Bunny had long-standing links to Shashamane and had spoken about his desire to return and live in Ethiopia. That connection gave the birthday tribute a deeper current than a standard observance. It was not simply about remembering a giant of reggae. It was about recognizing that Bunny’s ideas about Africa, return and spiritual belonging were rooted in a place where those ideas still shape everyday community life.

The music side of the program looked strong enough to stand as a real performance night. The Imperial Majestic Band led the bill, with a set list built around Bunny Wailer staples including Babylon Falling, Ethiopia Calling, Oh Lord, Trees and Give To You, along with selections from his final album, Andromeda. Other performers named for the tribute included Orthodox Issachar, Teddy Dan, Iron Gad, Pat Joseph and the Melody Sisters, a lineup that gave the event a proper roots-reggae shape rather than a token ceremonial feel.

Shashamane’s significance is hard to separate from the scale of the tribute. About 600 Jamaicans and their families live there, and the town remains a Rastafarian spiritual home in the fullest sense. Honoring Bunny there, on his birthday, made the occasion feel less like a retrospective and more like a continuation of the repatriation story he spent his life embodying. In Shashamane, Bunny Wailer was not just being remembered. He was being placed where his legacy still belongs.