[1] Beginning in the 1830s and lasting until 1918, dhol-tasha was taken around the world by Indian workers, mostly from present-day Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, enmeshed in a global scheme of indentured labor in British, French, and Dutch territories.
Brought by indentured workers to the Caribbean, Fiji, Mauritius, and Africa in the 19th century, tassa ensembles have flourished with great dynamism in Guyana and Trinidad and Tobago, where they were used in the Hindu Phagwah, Muslim Hosay festival, and also in Florida, the New York metropolitan area, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Texas, the Greater Toronto Area, California, Australia, New Zealand, and various other places where Indo-Caribbean and Indo-Fijian diasporic communities are found.
Traditionally, the tassa is made by tightly covering a clay shell with goat skin, using an intricate, archaic process.
Although synthetic drums last longer, they deviate from the long-standing tradition of clay and goatskin and, according to some connoisseurs and aficionados, do not sound as well due to its limited range of pitch and cold, metallic, twangy tones.
Bass drums are usually constructed from a single piece of tree trunk, usually mango or cedar, which is hollowed out by either lathe or hand.
Older, larger drums were made of the dense but light weight cottonwood tree which is rarely found today.
The flair and machismo of a tassa group usually falls to the bass player, the playing style of which can range from stationary and reserved to flamboyant, aggressive and punishing, the latter of which has been termed "break away".