SATTA MASSAGANA
A slow, solemn Abyssinians foundation that became bigger than one record. Satta has been revoiced for decades and absorbed into Rastafari musical and devotional life.
The Abyssinians recorded “Satta Massagana” in March 1969 at Studio One, building a minor-key roots foundation around Amharic language and Rastafari imagination. The song’s release history was complicated, but its musical and spiritual reach eventually became enormous. The riddim has been rebuilt and voiced repeatedly by other artists and producers, while the original song has taken on hymn-like status in some Rastafari settings. That double life makes Satta unusual even among foundation riddims: it is both reusable musical material and a recording whose words carry meaning far beyond the studio.