Culture

Djembe

The djembe is a Mande drum, found in all of West Africa, where it is one of the most common instruments. There is general agreement that the origin of the djembe is associated with a class of Mandinka/Susu blacksmiths known as Numu. The wide dispersion of the djembe drums throughout West Africa may be due to Numu migrations dating from the first millennium A.D.

Despite the associations of the djembe with the Numu, there do not appear to be hereditary restrictions upon who can play the djembe as occurs with some other African instruments.

The djembe first made an impact outside West Africa in Paris of the 1940’s and more widely in the 1950’s and 1960’s with the filming and world tours of Les Ballets Africains featuring a young Papa Ladji Camara and led by Fodeba Keita of Guinea. The "national ballet" movement, in which a number of drumming/dancing companies have adapted traditional African drumming/dancing events to the Western-style stage, has resulted in a surge of interest in African drumming, especially djembe drumming.

Beginning in the late 20th century, the djembe became very popular in drum circles all around the world. In proper form, however, it's played in ensemble with the "dunun" drum (dununba, sangban, kenkeni), bells, with individuals playing different parts that lace together intricately to weave a delicate rhythmic tapestry. Dancers are accompanied by djembe and dunun drummers, including a lead djembe player, or soloist, who will play rhythms which align with the dancer's movements as they make them, and whose playing will signal changes in the dance steps, as well as the beginning and end of a piece.

Traditionally crafted djembe drums are carved in one single piece from hollowed out hardwood trees. Specific types of wood depend upon the forests accessible to the drum makers. Some West African hardwoods used for musician quality instruments (carved in Guinea, Senegal, Mali, and Ivory Coast) include dimba (bush mango), lenge, bois rouge, acajou, iroko, hare or khadi, and dugura.

Dundun

A Dunun (also known as dundun, doundoun, or djun-djun) is the generic name for a family of West African bass drums that developed alongside the djembe in the Mande drum ensemble.

The dunun is a double headed, cylindrical drum typically made of a wood shell (although metal and fiberglass shells exist) and cowhide heads (although, some have goat-skin heads). The heads are held on with rope and often steel rings.

There are two primary playing styles for dununs. The traditional style has each player using a single drum resting on its side, either on the floor or on a stand, and striking the head with one stick and a bell mounted on top with the other. A melody is created across the interplay of the three dununs. For the other style, known as ballet style as it is used in the National Ballets, one player has command of the three dununs standing on the floor. Playing like this allows a more complex arrangement for the dance.

There are wide variations on how the dunun is played throughout West Africa. In Mali they are sometimes played with just one dunun and a bell that is held in the hand. In some regions of Guinea the dunun is played with no bells, or only two dunun are played. In Hamanah all three dunun with bells are played. The influence of Mamady Keïta, Famoudou Konaté, Mohamed Diaby, Bolokada Conde, and others from Guinea have contributed to the spreading of the three dunun style of playing.

Tama

The Tama or talking drum is a West African drum whose pitch can be regulated to the extent that it is said the drum "talks". The player puts the drum under one shoulder and beats the instrument with a stick. A talking drum player raises or lowers the pitch by squeezing or releasing the drum's strings with the upper arm. This can produce highly informative sounds to convey complicated messages. The ability to change the drum's pitch is analogous to the language tonality of some African languages

Talking drums are one the oldest instruments used by West African griots and their history can be traced back to ancient Ghana Empire. The Hausa people (and by influence, the Yoruba people of southern Nigeria and Benin and the Dagomba of northern Ghana) have developed a highly sophisticated genre of griot music centering on the talking drum.

In the 20th century the talking drum became a part of popular music in West Africa. It is used in playing Mbalax music of Senegal and in Fuji and Jùjú music of Nigeria (where it known as a dundun, not to be confused with the dundun bass drum of the Mandé peoples.) Among the Wolof people of Senegal, the talking drum (known as a tama) is an hour-glass shaped drum with two heads (goat, lizard (iguana), or fish skin) tuned by straps that connect the heads with each other.

Calabash

The calabash (not to be confused with the calabaza) is a vine grown for its fruit, which can either be harvested young and used as a vegetable or harvested mature, dried, and used as a bottle, utensil, or pipe. For this reason, one of the calabash subspecies is known as the bottle gourd. The fresh fruit has a light green smooth skin and a white flesh.

The calabash was one of the first cultivated plants in the world, grown not for food but as a container. It was named for the calabash tree (Crescentia cujete), a different type of plant.

Hollowed out and dried calabashes are a very typical utensil in households across West Africa. They are used to clean rice, carry water and also just as a food container. Smaller sizes are used as bowls to drink palm-wine. Calabashes are used by some musicians in making the kora (a harp-lute), xalam (a lute), and the goje (a traditional fiddle). They also serve as resonators on the balafon (West African marimba). The calabash is also used in making the Shegureh (Women's Rattle) and Balangi (a Sierra Leonean type of balafon) musical instruments. Sometimes, large calabashes are simply hollowed, dried and used as percussion instruments, especially by Fulani, Songhai, Gur-speaking and Hausa peoples.

Sabar

The sabar is traditional drum from the West African nation of Senegal. It is generally played with one hand and one stick. Among its most renowned exponents is the Senegalese musician Doudou N'Diaye Rose.

The Sabar was used to communicate to other villages. The different rhythms correspond to phrases and could be heard for over 15 kilometers.

Griot Tradition

Like the instruments he plays, Keita’s heritage offers a distinctive twist on traditional expectations, with the Keita name linking him directly to the Mandinka kings of the 13th century. As a descendent of these kings, Keita would not normally have been allowed or expected to play the kora, a skill reserved and handed down primarily within West Africa’s griot families.

“I would be seen as being related to kings, as a kind of prince”, he explains, “so normally I would be seen as someone that musicians play for, not as a musician myself. The lucky part in it all was that I was raised by my mother family, the Cissokhos, who are one of the leading griot families, and so I was trained in music from an early age”.

The training itself is extremely rigorous, and Keita notes that musicians are taught to build their own instruments by the age of seven or eight, and only after years of study acquire the skills necessary to perform the repertoire of hundreds of songs and stories that make up the griot’s heritage.

“My interest is in extending the borders of my traditional framework”, he says, “but I do have the full, traditional background and repertoire of compositions, some of which date back hundreds of years, to the 12th and 13th centuries. I can easily tell when I hear a player if they’ve had traditional training”, he adds, “because there are the deeper patterns and melodies, not just the simple sound in their playing. As a member of my generation, I have the responsibility to carry that on”. Keita quotes Senegalese poet and former President Leopold Sadar Senghor’s remark that when an elder dies in Africa, it is like a book being burned in Europe. “It’s the same with the griots”, he says. “They carry the knowledge and history of the whole community, just as books do in the libraries of the west”. 

While some griots specialise in particular areas, the Cissokho family, and Keita himself, are noted as both singers and instrumental players. 2003’s family tour under the name Jalikunda demonstrated the depth of knowledge and range of skills – from percussion and kora to storytelling and song – with which Keita grew up, and he co-produced the resulting album, Lindiane.

“Some very great kora players like Toumani Diabate, never sing”, Keita points out, “but all my family are all singers, and I sing too because of this. I already spoke four languages”, he laughs, “and English is now my fifth, but when I sing it’s always in Mandinka, my mother-tongue. I’ve never felt the necessity to translate the songs”.

“Audiences who don’t know the language can still understand”, he adds. “It’s easy to hear when a song is sad or happy, to pick up on the mood and the emotion, so no explanation is needed. With different songs you sing from the belly, heart or head, and the meaning comes with the feeling that the voice and the music create together”.