Firstman

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 orator.

Firstman has had a long career as a community organizer and 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.