Rhythms of Culture: Djembe and African Memory in African-American Cultural

Traditions
Author(s): Tanya Y. Price
Source: Black Music Research Journal , Fall 2013, Vol. 33, No. 2 (Fall 2013), pp. 227-247
Published by: Center for Black Music Research - Columbia College Chicago and
University of Illinois Press

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5406/blacmusiresej.33.2.0227

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 Rhythms of Culture:
Djembe and African Memory
in African-American Cultural Traditions
Tanya Y. Price

An intriguing cultural phenomenon has been developing over the past

forty years in dance studios and festivals in the United States and abroad:
traditional African culture is being diffused through formal and informal
instruction in the African arts. Among the most notable of the cultural arts
being taught are drum and dance traditions. Because of the efforts of Afri-
cans who have migrated to other countries and the work of their students,
the djembe drum has grown from relatively obscure origins (among the
Mandingue people of West Africa) to become the most popular African
drum of thousands worldwide (Charry 2000). (Master drummer Mamady
Keita estimated that “not just a thousand but a million” people listened
to his teaching regarding the djembe [Keita 2011]). This phenomenon has
not only exposed non-African populations to traditional African cultural
practices, it has also become a vehicle by which people of African descent
have reconnected with African roots—values of ancestors from which there
has been significant separation due to the transatlantic slave trade. In the
United States, few African Americans are aware of the extent to which they
participate in the “stream of African culture.” However, through African-
American musical forms, African musical idioms have become dominant
in world music (Chernoff 1985, 3).
African Americans have taken a leading role in establishing African
cultural influences in the world. One reason for this is that many musical
realizations contain elements that are directly related to African cultural

Tanya Y. Price is Assistant Professor of Social and Cultural Anthropology at North Carolina
A&T State University. Her research and teaching interests include West African and other
cultures of the African Diaspora, cultural identities, and the politics of race. Dr. Price is also
a percussionist and trap drummer specializing in the dunun/djembe orchestra of the Man-
dingue people of West Africa.

Black Music Research Journal Vol. 33, No. 2, Fall 2013

© 2013 by the Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois

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228 bmr journal

practices. In addition, many connections with core values of the culture

were established through early involvement with movements that empha-
sized African drum and dance in the United States. By examining certain
developments in African-American music with an emphasis on African
drumming (and an added emphasis on the djembe), I will substantiate
some of the recognized connections between African and African-American
musical practices.
My perspective will be that of a cultural anthropologist who studies
the cultural products of the African Diaspora and who is also a practitio-
ner—one who has performed as a drummer for the better part of her life,
with experiences ranging from playing drum set (gospel, jazz, and reggae)
to intense studies with a renowned master drummer from the Malinke
tradition. This perspective has informed my readings of African cultural
continuities in significant ways.

The History and Location of Mandingue Djembe and Dunun

Drumming Traditions
In West Africa, the contemporary center of the djembe and dunun (three bass
drum) orchestra runs along the upper Niger River from Faranah, Guinea,
to Segou, Mali, with extensions stretching east into Burkina Faso; south
into Côte D’Ivoire, southwest into Conakry, Guinea; and west toward the
Malian cities of Kita and Kayes (Charry 2000, 214). The primary urban cen-
ters of djembe drumming are the capital cities of Guinea (Conakry) and
Mali (Bamako); however, one also finds djembe orchestras in Abidjan, Côte
d’Ivoire; Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso; and Dakar, Senegal (Charry 2000,
214). The djembe is associated with a large ethnic group collectively known
as the Malinke or Mandingue. This ethnic group migrated throughout a
large region of West Africa associated with the old Mali Empire, a kingdom
bordering the Sahara desert in the northwest region of Africa that reached
the apex of its development between 1300 and 1500. Although I focus on
the djembe/dunun orchestra, it is noted that Mandingue musical culture
incorporates a variety of musical instruments that have also been influential
in the spread of African music in the West. These instruments include the
krin (a tuned wood drum), the balafon (an African predecessor to the ma-
rimba or xylophone), flutes, and horns. Also included are a rich variety of
stringed instruments such as the harp-like kora (a twenty-one stringed harp-
lute), the bolon (a three-stringed instrument connected to a gourd drum),
the ngoni (a purported ancestor of the African-American banjo), and a va-
riety of other instruments (Charry 2000, 10; Allen 2011). Like most of the
traditional African arts, drumming is transmitted orally, via a system of

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Price  •  Rhythms of Culture 229

apprenticeship under a master—thus, the historical origins of djembe and

dunun drumming are difficult to substantiate. Mamady Keïta is one of a
few widely recognized djembe karamo, or initiated masters in the Mandingue
tradition. Keïta explains that many of the traditional Mandingue rhythms
were derived from the rhythmic singing, hand clapping, and dancing of
women, which the men later transmitted to the drum (Billmeier 2007, 46).
The earliest known written accounts of Europeans describe a dunun-like
drum in 1068 and a djembe drum in 1898. Therefore, it is evident that djembe
and dunun traditions existed long before Europeans became aware of them
(Charry 2000, 195–198). Some oral histories place the origins of the djembe
and dunun drum orchestra as distant as three thousand years ago (Diakite
and Sidibe 2001).
The wide distribution of the djembe in West Africa was probably linked to
the numu, or blacksmiths, from the first millennium CE. To lend legitimacy
to this theory, many djembe players carry traditional blacksmith names such
as Camara, Kanté, or Doumbia. However, not all Mandingue djembefolas,
“one[s] who make the djembe speak,” are descended from traditional black-
smith lineages. For example, Mamady Keïta and Famoudou Konaté, master
drummers recognized globally as the most accomplished djembefolas in
the Mandingue tradition, have names that originated from horon, or horo, or
nonartisan noble lineages (Charry 2000, 213). The surname Keïta denotes a
descendant of the great King Sundjata, founder of the Mali Empire during
the thirteenth century (Niane 2006, vii; Billmeier 2007, 12). The numu were
and still are considered the bearers of ritual power—harvesting fire to make
the iron tools necessary to carve djembe drum shells and the masks of the
powerful Kòmò secret society. Numu were also responsible for performing
circumcision and excision ceremonies, the rites of passage intended to lift
the dangerous energy from boys and girls and to mark their entrance into
adulthood (Charry 2000, 213; Billmeier 2007, 26). According to Keïta, the
rituals accompanying the construction of the djembe were practiced as
recently as forty years ago:
At that time, the djembe was built only for one’s own private use. Unlike
today, there was no commercial interest. Nobody would ever have thought
to make money for the making of a drum. The village djembe player went
to the blacksmith, gave him ten kola nuts, and asked him to make a new
djembe. The blacksmith considered the making of such a drum an honor
(Billmeier 2007, 18).
After the djembeföla gives the blacksmith ten kola nuts to make the
djembe, the blacksmith goes into the forest to find the perfect tree to make
a djembe. This tree would most often be a lenke or djala tree. Once he has
found the tree, the blacksmith performs a ceremony at the base of the tree
asking its spirit to accept that it will be cut so the village can have a djembe.

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230 bmr journal

After this, the blacksmith measures the length needed for the djembe and
cuts the tree. In order to make the djembe, he begins carving from the
center of the wood until there is one hole from the top to the bottom. This
enables the voice of the tree to speak through the djembe. The blacksmith
then performs another ceremony and continues this work until the djembe
is completely carved. Before placing the skin on the djembe there is another
ceremony, and when the djembe is ready to use they have a big celebration
because the tree will speak through the sound of the djembe (Keïta July
27, 2013 Personal communications).
Most master drummers prefer drum shells of either lenke or djala wood;
Keïta has always used lenke (Keïta 2008), which is said to be infused with
spiritual energy (Charry 2000, 214).1 According to Keïta, “the actual form
of the djembé probably evolved from the mortar at least that is what the
old people and my master from Balandugu say” (Billmeier 2007, 18).
In West Africa the djembe and dunun (bass drum) ensemble varies slight-
ly, depending upon geography and context (rural or urban, large or small
village). For my purposes here, I use the Wassolon region of upper Guinea
(Mamady Keïta’s region) as a model for the djembe orchestra. For the best
sound, Mamady Keïta prefers three djembe (one solo and two accompa-
nying djembe) and three dunun—the sangbon, kenkeni, and dununba;
however, in practice the size of the orchestra varies depending upon the
occasion, the size of the village, and the availability of drummers. There
is at least one distinctive lead djembe part, usually played by the most
skilled drummer. His drum is tuned higher than the two accompanying
djembe to facilitate his part being heard above the rest of the orchestra.
Most rhythms have two djembe accompaniment parts; others have three,
rarely four or more. Many have at least one accompaniment pattern that
works with several rhythms. This allows less-skilled as well as advanced
players to provide accompaniment. Traditionally, each djembe is tuned to
a different pitch, which creates a “melody” between the three djembe and
the other parts of the orchestra. According to Keïta, this melody is rapidly
disappearing in the urban context, due to the high-pitched djembe sound
preferred in cities such as Conakry. Tuning all of the djembes high causes
the melody to disappear (Keita 2012). The rhythmic patterns played on the

1. See Diallo and Hall 1989 and Billmeier 2007. Of the reasons for drumming in African com-
munities, two primary reasons emerge from these sources: (1) to channel and utilize spiritual
energy, and (2) to create a sense of unity. For Diallo and Hall, the sounds of drums and the act of
playing them alter brain activities in ways that are indicative of trance and/or spirit possession.
Through trance, people contact the spiritual realm directly, enabling them to cope with social
stresses and receive spiritual confirmations from “invisible sources” (Diallo and Hall 1989, 84).
Keita observed how, in a short time, African drumming creates an atmosphere of warmth and
closeness, a feeling of harmony, and a “growing sense of joy and energy” (Billmeier 2007, 11).

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Price  •  Rhythms of Culture 231

three dunun distinguish the rhythm being played. Like the djembe, each
of the dunun is carved out of a single, hollowed-out log. The log is then
fitted with cowskin heads on both sides, with iron rings used to affix the
drumheads. The dunun are created in three sizes: the small, higher-pitched
kenkeni; the medium sangbon; and the larger dununba, the lowest-pitched
drum. Typically, the sangbon, the “mother,” carries the main rhythm; the
dununba, the “father,” provides the bottom and improvises; and the ken-
keni plays a consistent pattern that adds spice to the rhythm. In traditional
Mandingue rhythms, the dunun were usually played horizontally. The
dununfola (dunun player) carries the instrument on his shoulder using a
strap and places it on the ground or on a stand. The right or dominant hand
plays the drumhead with a stick while tapping a separate time-keeping
rhythm on a tuned bell with the opposite hand. The bell is usually affixed
atop the dunun. The dunun drums and their bells each create separate
melodies within the rhythm, contributing to the rich texture of the music.
In the traditional context, dances and their accompanying drum per-
formances were uniquely associated with specific occasions, each rhythm
having a purpose, a time, and a place. Drums were used for multiple rea-
sons, from social events to secret society rituals, from planting the fields
and pounding rice to life-cycle events such as naming ceremonies, initia-
tions and marriages. Today, some rhythms and dances have less specific
associations and may be performed at a variety of events. “Drummers play
rhythms that give people strength and courage before or during a trial and
honor them when they have passed through it. Drumming is above all a
communal event that demands participation from all present in the form
of dancing, hand clapping, and singing” (Charry 2000, 198). Through their
participation, the audience honors those being celebrated.
With the exception of slight size and shape differences among various
ethnic groups, the basic shape of the djembe drum has remained relatively
constant throughout its long history, save a significant innovation occur-
ring within the last fifty years. This innovation, springing from cultural
interaction between Africans and African Americans, consists of the use
of iron rings to tighten and stretch a goat, antelope, or occasionally a cow
skin over the bowl (top playing surface) of the drum shell. To achieve this,
the ironsmith first prepares three iron rings to fit the drum shell and a
length of fabric is wrapped around the rings. Next, loops made of strong
rope are tied around the circumference of at least two of the rings. One
of the rings is then positioned on the bottom of the bowl, with loops fac-
ing upward and two of the rings placed atop the shell, with loops facing
downward. Animal skin is then stretched between the two rings on the
top of the bowl. Next, a long length of rope is laced between the top and
bottom rings by threading the rope thorough the loops attached to two

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232 bmr journal

of the rings. Once the rings and ropes are properly positioned, the rope
is pulled taught, first vertically, then horizontally, as the drum is tuned,
thus forming a diamond-shaped rope pattern (called the Mali Weave)
around the bowl of the drum. This lacing pulls the skin so tightly that
the djembe achieves an extraordinary sound range, from a high, crack-
ing “slap” to a low, resonating “bass” sound. According to Famoudou
Konaté, before the rings were introduced, the drumhead was attached
to the bowl using a twisted piece of antelope skin and tuned by placing
it next to an open flame. “Toujours la flame,” Konaté said (2011, June 5).
Most American djembefolas attribute the modern djembe tuning system
to an African-American drummer named Chief Bey. Bey was once a mem-
ber of the acclaimed African percussion group, Drums of Passion, which
included Guinean master drummer “Papa” Ladji Camera and Nigerian
Baba Olatunji. Arriving in New York City during the late 1950s, Olatunji
and Camera were among the first African natives to teach traditional Af-
rican drumming in the United States. Camera also established his own
dance company in New York. Prior to his arrival in the United States,
Camera had been the lead djembefola of Les Ballet Africains de Guinea,
the acclaimed dance company established by Fodéba Keita and adapted
as Guinea’s National Ballet in 1958. Konaté heard about the iron rings
while traveling in New York City and saw them for the first time at a Pan
African festival in Lagos, Nigeria.2 Konaté later observed the rings on
the drum of a large African-American djembefola from Brooklyn.3 After
returning to Guinea, Konaté, acting in his capacity as lead drummer and
soloist for Les Ballet Africains de Guinea—an acclaimed dance company
active in Guinea starting in the late 1950s— described the rings to his
percussion section. He tried to obtain the rings for his drummers, but his
attempts failed. Finally, he tried to fashion a ring himself using a small
piece of wire, which unfortunately split his drum head. Some years later,
members of the company finally adopted the iron ring system, allowing
a tighter drumhead and more precise tuning. According to Konaté, “Now
. . . [the iron rings] are everywhere in the world, but the first to create it
was an African American” (Konaté 2011). This significant innovation in
djembe drum construction points to African Americans’ seminal role in
the adaptation and perpetuation of African drumming and dance in the
United States, as well as a close cultural dynamic between Africans and
African Americans who practiced African cultural arts.

2. I speculate that Konaté was referring to the Second World African Festival of Arts and
Culture, Lagos, Nigeria, 1977.
3. According to Konaté, this djembefola’s name was Alarund Kwaul, now deceased. Greg
Ince, referenced below, also knew Kwaul. However, neither man knew how to spell his name.
Unable to locate a written reference, I have spelled his name phonetically.

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Price  •  Rhythms of Culture 233

The Translation of the Drum Tradition

in the United States
Some historical interpretations of African cultural continuity in the United
States emphasize that the institution of slavery nearly eliminated the in-
fluence of African culture (Frazier 1963; Chernoff 1985, 3; Holloway 1990,
ix). Others, however, have documented numerous instances in which the
undeniable link between African and African-American culture remained
in the arts, language, family structure, and the like. Music is one of the ar-
eas in which many agree on the continuity of African cultures in America.
Continuities between African and African-American music are somewhat
easy to recognize (Chernoff 1985, 3). In short, African-American music “uses
rhythms in the same ways and according to the same organizing principles”
as African music (Chernoff 1985, 4). These rhythmic principles include the
primacy of rhythm in the music; the use of multiple rhythms and meters;
call-and-response (Chernoff 1985, 4; Maultsby 1990, 193; Southern 1997,
15, 17); the “off-beat accentuation of melodic and solo-percussive lines,”
or “syncopation” (Chernoff 1985, 3; Maultsby 1990, 193; Southern 1997,
195–196); and “a concern for rhythmic drive and danceability” (Chernoff
1985, 4).
Many historical records illustrate the continuance of African traditions
in the Americas, despite the fact that most slave masters banned the use of
traditional African drums among the slave populations of North America.
Enslaved Africans either practiced drumming in secret or expressed rhythm
using alternate means. Noted scholar Eileen Southern states that
although the musical cultures of West Africa during the slave-trade period
varied from nation to nation, the cultures shared enough features to constitute
an identifiable heritage for Africans in the New World. From the accounts of
explorers and traders, to which can be added evidence deduced from modern
oral traditions, we learn the primacy of music as an integral part of everyday
life, of distinctive performance practices, and of the prevalent musical instru-
ments. (Southern 1997, 19–20)

Although enslaved Africans spoke different languages, they were able to

communicate fairly well. As Olaudah Equiano pointed out in his Interest-
ing Life of Olaudah Equiano . . . the African . . . , “I understood them [other
Africans], though they were from a distant part of Africa” (Equiano 1995,
58). According to historian Joseph Holloway, the transatlantic slave trade
was “the largest forced migration in history” (Holloway 1990, 1), bringing
an estimated half-million Africans to what is now the United States over
a two-hundred-year period, representing approximately 7 percent of the
entire transatlantic slave trade. Although the exact figures are in dispute, if

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234 bmr journal

one considers those who “perished in the stockades and on the cargo ships”
(Holloway 1990, 1) among the total, the entire volume of the transatlantic
slave trade may well have been over forty million. So great was this traffic
that “by 1850 a third of the people of African descent lived outside of Af-
rica” (Curtain 1969, quoted in Holloway 1990, 1). Most Africans transported
during the trade were taken to Cuba, Brazil, islands in the Atlantic, and
various countries of Central and South America. Enslaved Africans “came
from diverse regions of Africa but particularly from those areas stretching
along the coast through West Africa to Central Africa” (Holloway 1990, 1).
Among the enslaved Africans brought to the United States, an estimated
25 percent were from regions inhabited by West Africa’s Mandingue ethnic
group (Holloway 1990, 3).
Mandingue music and related cultural influences would have contributed
to the mix of cultures from the Congo and West Africa. This intersection
of cultures also influenced the music that enslaved Africans created in the
Americas (Chernoff 1985, 5; Southern 1997, 3–22; Epstein 2006, 36–50). For
example, folklorist and drummer Sule Gregg Wilson reports that Bam-
bara, a Malian language closely related to Malinke, was so influential in
eighteenth-century Louisiana that it was named the official creole language
(Wilson 1992, 21). During the colonial period, Africans living in the northern
colonies, both enslaved and free, continued their African traditions through
songs, dances, and folk festivals. This activity provided “some measure of
release from the physical and spiritual brutality of slavery” (Southern 1997,
21). In northern cities with a large percentage of black people, holidays
such as “Lection Day” in New Hampshire gave Africans an opportunity
to elect their own “governors” or “kings,” enabling blacks to participate in
elaborate ceremonies that paralleled Election Day for the white population.
The tradition started in Connecticut around 1750 and lasted as late as the
1850s (Southern 1997, 52). Certain portions of the festival included as many
as one hundred Africans on parade, dressed in their finest clothes, dancing
to the music of fifes, fiddles, clarinets, and drums. An observer reported the
use of African languages in the singing. Pinkser Day, or Pentecost Sunday,
a celebration of Dutch origin, was adopted by the English colonists in New
York, Pennsylvania, and Maryland. Local historians referred to this festival
as “Pinkster, the Carnival of the Africans” (Southern 1997, 53). The festival
incorporated an entire week of “Congo dances” that attracted the curiosity
of whites as well as Africans. In Albany, New York, a reference was made to
the “hollow drum” (almost certainly an African-style drum), the “Guinea
Dance,” and “some queer African airs” (Southern 1997, 55). On occasion,
European Americans participated in African-influenced dances developed
in America. One 1776 account describes how, in Virginia, “Towards the
close of an evening . . . it is usual to dance jigs, borrowed from the Negros”

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Price  •  Rhythms of Culture 235

(Epstein 2006, 39). As late as 1876, Henry W. Ravenel of South Carolina,

who was born in 1814, described how “the jig was an African dance and a
famous one in old times.” During the Negro jigs, the music would change,
the fiddle assuming a low monotonous tone and the whole tune running
on only three or four notes (Epstein 2006, 39–40; Epstein 1977, 123). In the
North, large carnival gatherings permitting open display of African culture
persisted through the end of formal slavery in the first years of the nine-
teenth century. In the South, however, slavery lasted into the 1860s and slave
codes did not allow the display of African culture. The next significant site
for the emergence of African cultural festivals was late-eighteenth-century
New Orleans in Louisiana. Carl Brasseaux states that “this was possible
because lax supervision during the weekends allowed enslaved Africans to
gather in order to practice their ethnic drum and dance traditions” (1980,
155). During the nineteenth century, Africans in New Orleans gathered at
the “Place Congo,” later called “Congo Square.” In 1800 the Congo Square
consisted of a large, grassy plain “set back behind the Vieux Carré [Old
Quarter] . . . surrounded by wood and swamps” (Berry 1988, 3). Large
gatherings of enslaved Africans would meet at Congo Square on Sundays
to perform their traditional dancing and drumming. In addition, the city’s
location on the Gulf of Mexico’s coast afforded ample room for the inter-
section of various African diasporic traditions from the Caribbean and the
United States. Influences from diverse European traditions (including Span-
ish, French, British, and German) were included in this mix and resulted
in a flowering of musical styles previously unknown in the United States
(Southern 1997, 56). Thus, New Orleans is considered to be the birthplace of
some of African Americans’ most notable musics, including the city’s brass
band and early jazz traditions. Elsewhere in the South, enslaved Africans
danced and sang in African style when gathered together for diversion or
for secret religious ceremonies (Raboteau 1978, 243).
Sule Greg Wilson offers a history of the presence of African drums and
drumming in the United States in his book, The Drummers Path (1992). The
book contains illustrations and photographs of drums and scenes depict-
ing drumming from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. One such
document was a photograph of a drum described as “typical of the Ashanti
of Ghana” that was collected in Virginia in the 1750s and is now housed
in the British Museum (Wilson 1992, 22; Epstein 2006, 37). The drum was
constructed using American materials such as cedar wood and deerskin
and was originally mislabeled as an Indian drum. It was later confirmed
to be an African drum and served as proof that African-style drums were
being constructed in the United States as early as the mid-eighteenth cen-
tury (Wilson 1992, 22). This suggests that other Africans living in America
carefully constructed their traditional drums and hid them from slave

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236 bmr journal

masters. Perhaps masters feared the use of African drums because of their
potential for communication and transmission of African culture that, in
their eyes, would have threatened and disrupted the system of enslavement.
The masters’ fears may have been well-founded. Historical accounts of
the 1739 Stono Rebellion in South Carolina, a revolt begun on a plantation
near Charles Town, demonstrate that “Angola Negroes” danced, sang,
and played drums to inspire themselves (Southern 1997, 57) and to attract
additional Africans to join the insurrection (Epstein 2006, 37) as they pro-
ceeded southward towards St. Augustine, Florida, burning white peoples’
homesteads as they traveled (Southern 1997, 57 quoting Holland 1822).
In response, the colony of South Carolina imposed a rigorously enforced
ban on African drumming. Despite the law and similar ones elsewhere,
however, some African Americans found ways to make and play African-
style drums. In Georgia, for example, former slaves interviewed by the
Georgia Writer’s Project of the 1930s described “how to make drums from
hollow trees and recalled dancing to drums, which must have been done
in secret” (Epstein 2006, 37–38). Either African instruments were created
with materials that were available (Wilson 1992, 74) or enslaved Africans
used their bodies like a drum, clapping and stomping with feet and sticks
as practiced within the traditional Gullah/Geechie “ring shout” or “patting
juba” (Hartigan 1995, 235). Patting juba involves striking the knees, chest,
thighs, and other areas of the body with alternate blows of one’s hands,
rendering complex percussive patterns and varied sounds from each body
part, a cultural practice that was “apparently unique to the United States”
(Epstein 2006, 38). These accounts suggest that despite the official banning
of African drums in North America, the spirit and the rhythm of African
drums remained in the consciousness of enslaved African musicians in
the United States.
Percussionist and ethnomusicologist Royal Hartigan, who studied with
Ghanaian master percussionists and African-American “trap” drummers,
called upon his expertise to document the history of the trap drum set in the
late nineteenth century. Hartigan presents trap drums as a prime example
of African cultural memory remaining in North America despite earlier
bans imposed on African drumming. For Hartigan, this modern instrument
was largely the result of African-American creativity, standing today as
one of the most recognized and prevailing instruments on stages world-
wide. The trap drum set emerged in the late 1890s when, for economic
and logistical reasons, a single percussionist was required to play several
instruments at once. The snare and bass drums of the New Orleans concert
and marching bands provided the basic setup to which other accessories
or “trappings” were added, including the bangu (a tom-tom brought to the
United States by Chinese immigrants), gongs, cymbals, and woodblocks.

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Price  •  Rhythms of Culture 237

During the 1920s and 1930s, the high-hat cymbals were added to the setup.
By the 1940s, master drummers such as Baby Dodds, playing with Louis
Armstrong, (Wilson 1992, 27) and “Philly” Joe Jones, a pioneer in the cre-
ation of the be-bop drumming style, set the standard for trap drumming in
the United States (Hartigan 1995, 234). Hartigan asserts that the “interplay
of coordinated independent voices characterized the function, sound and
feel of the drumset performer in the African American ‘Jazz’ tradition and
West African drumming” (Hartigan 1995, 234). For example, the parts of
the drum set parallel the instruments in the African percussion orchestra
one to one: the African bells are expressed through the trap set’s crash and
ride cymbals; the lead drum becomes the snare; the gourd rattle or shekeré
expresses using the high-hat cymbals; the bass drum voice is played with
the bass drum pedal; and additional medium and high drum voices are
attained using the drum set’s tom-toms. In addition, the various parts of
the West African drum ensemble combine to create a melody, just as the
voices of the percussion instruments incorporated within the trap drum set
create a melody (Wilson 1992, 27–28). Whereas in the West African percus-
sion traditions, the master drummer coordinates the various drum voices,
the trap drummer in the jazz ensemble conducts his or her self-contained
ensemble by playing his or her own drum kit (Wilson 1992, 24).
The choice of these specific percussion voices is part of an African aesthetic
maintained by Africans in the West. No matter the type or form of African-
derived music encountered, the aesthetics are the same from the blues or
jazz to soul and rap (Chernoff 1985, 4; Wilson 1992, 28). When listening to
the singers of Guinea, Mali, and the sub-Saharan belt, the parallels to the
blues are clear. Chernoff observes that “it does not take much of an ear to
hear soul or funk beats in Yoruba” (1985, 5). Thus, we find easy correlations
of musical styles and influences between African pop styles such as Ghana-
ian high life music, Nigerian juju, and Zairian rumba on the one hand and
American blues, soul, jazz, and hip-hop, Cuban rumba, or Jamaican reggae
on the other. These musics are all variations of the same tradition because
they are derived from an African musical idiom (Chernoff 1985, 4).
Considering the historical survey above, one can deduce that the form,
function, and feel of African drumming remained in the United States as a
distinct set of performance practices expressed through African-American
musical innovation. However, it is difficult to trace any particular African-
American music or rhythm to any specific group in Africa. In other words,
African-American music represents so many different African cultures
that “only the standard and fundamental rhythms of African music could
solidify the variety of beats that came into this country” (Chernoff 1985,
6–7). African-American music represents several West and Central African
traditions distilled to their most elemental forms (Wilson 1992, 19, 24–25).

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238 bmr journal

With few exceptions, the banning of African drums during slavery forced
indigenous African drum traditions underground and precluded the pres-
ervation of drum orchestras. Though the drum orchestra is not connected
easily to black musical traditions in the continental United States (Cher-
noff 1985), such ensembles did develop in Caribbean and South American
countries such as Belize, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, and Brazil.

Reconnections with African Drum Cultures

The growing influence of the United States in this hemisphere and the
increasing migration of people from the Caribbean and Latin America to
the U.S. promoted cross-cultural exchange among artists. In the 1940s, a
few African-American artists and scholars began to seek out the African
origins of African-American music and to reconnect with specific African
cultures at their source. Marta Moreno Vega observes that “the work of
Katherine Dunham, Zora Neal Hurston, and Pearl Primus—building on
the research of Melville Herskovits and W. E. B. Du Bois—introduced an
intellectual perspective of the African Diaspora into the arts. These artists
worked studiously to incorporate an international racial and cultural legacy
into an African-based aesthetic which could serve as a unifying link for
Africans in the Diaspora” (Vega 1995, 201). For example, dancer Katherine
Dunham studied the traditional dances of Haiti, Cuba, Martinique, Senegal,
and other locations, “fill[ing] the productions she staged for international
audiences with images, symbols, music, dance, instruments, and ritual
practice of the African Diaspora” (Vega 1995, 201). Dunham’s School of Arts
and Research on Forty-Second Street in New York “became the popular
meeting place of Caribbean, Central American, and South American dip-
lomats, painters, musicians, poets and the like” (Aschenbrenner 2002, 56).
The school held monthly gatherings, called Boule Blanches, where they
presented new and untried Cuban orchestras such as Perez Prado, Tito
Puente, Mongo Santamaria, and Bobby Capo. Dunham noted that “Celia
Cruz came to these affairs both as a guest and entertainer” (Vega 2005, 201,
quoting Katherine Dunham’s unpublished autobiography). Helen Hayes,
her daughter, and Lena Horne were among the regular participants and
performers. By incorporating Afro-Cuban and Haitian music in her produc-
tions, Dunham helped introduce traditional African musical styles to audi-
ences in the United States. Dunham founded the Performing Arts Center in
East St. Louis, Missouri, in 1967 for the purpose of providing vital cultural
programming in an economically depressed African-American community.
In 1997 I conducted an interview with educator and poet Eugene Redmond
at the Center, which appeared to be flourishing at that time. The Center
boasts a strong history, having trained the likes of Reginald and Warren

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Price  •  Rhythms of Culture 239

Hudlin, (film directors of House Party [1990] and Dead Presidents [1995]) and
Olympic track star Jackie Joyner-Kersee. According to Redmond, Katherine
Dunham at one time brought Mor Thiam, Senegalese drummer and former
principal drummer for Les Ballets National du Senegal, to the U.S. in order
to teach djembe drumming. She later brought a Nigerian master drummer
to teach talking drums. Redmond also stated that there was a time when
one could not walk the streets of East St. Louis without hearing drums
coming from somewhere. During the 1970s, the communal spirit of African
drums and drumming brought cultural revitalization to the economically
depressed community of East St. Louis (Price 1997).
On the African continent, Guinea’s first president, Sékou Touré, nation-
alized Les Ballets Africains, which was originally founded by Guinean
Fodéba Keïta in 1947 while he was a student in Paris (Billmeier 2007, 23).
When Guinea gained independence from France in 1958, Touré renamed
the ensemble Les Ballets Africains de Guinea, making it Africa’s first na-
tional ballet (Kaba 1976, 202). Touré declared a two-part mission for the
the ballet: (1) to acquaint foreign audiences with African “cultural values
and national riches,” and (2) to educate audiences and mobilize them for
a socialist cultural revolution (Touré 1963, 261; Billmeier 2007, 23). The
national ballet developed into a showcase tailored for the tastes of foreign
audiences. Djembe karamo Famoudou Konaté was chosen as principal
drummer and soloist with Les Ballets Africains de Guinea in 1959 (see
http://www.famoudoukonate.com). Similarly, after a systematic search
for the greatest musicians in the country, Mamady Keïta was recruited as a
djembefola for Guinea’s second national ballet, Ballet Djoliba. At the age of
fourteen, he became its youngest member and was appointed as lead solo-
ist one year later. He was later promoted to the position of artistic director
in 1979 (Billmeier 2007, 21–23). Touré was invested in the success of the
company and personally managed the rehearsal process for Ballet Djoliba
(as if he were the artistic director). Members of the company practiced on
a stage constructed on the grounds of his own palace, located on the island
of Loos near Conakry, Guinea (Keïta 2008; Chevallier, 2006).
Although they were based on actual village dances, National Ballet pre-
sentations were adapted for the stage by formally choreographing tradi-
tional dance movements (Charry 2000, 211). Keïta explained, “The rhythms
of the ballet have been mostly traditional rhythms which are modified, even
radically changed, for presentation on the stage: for instance, in regard to
the tempo, the djembe accompaniments or the dununba voices. But we
even create new rhythms . . . the ballet transforms tradition into a kind of
folkloric presentation, and, in doing so, loses some depth and authentic-
ity” (Billmeier 2007, 24). During a drum workshop, I asked Mamady Keïta
the following: “As one of the first generation of ballet choreographers and

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240 bmr journal

Artistic Director of the ballet [Djoliba], how did you go about the process
of choreography and music arranging?” Keïta replied, “I took the rhythms I
liked best and put them together.” “So it is modern with a traditional base?”
I asked. “Yes,” he replied, “traditionnel ordinaires, ballet spectaculaire” (the
traditional is ordinary, the ballet spectacular). In other words, Keïta took
traditional rhythms and modified them for the stage (Keïta 2011, June 5). As
lead djembefolas for Les Ballets Africains and the Ballet National Djoliba,
Konaté and Keïta created much of the Guinean classic ballet repertoire still
in use today (Keïta 2013, July 27).
Traditional African dance and music in village settings can last for hours,
but the Ballet in Guinea and most Ballets in Africa present many dances in
rapid succession at high energy levels. The dances are often presented as
long suites. For example, “Sacred Forest” and “Celebration,” first presented
by Les Ballet Africains in 1991, demonstrated a sequence of fifteen dances
from a half-dozen ethnic groups representing several regions of Guinea
and utilizing musical instruments from each region. The innovation of na-
tional dance troupes was intended in part to promote a national identity
based on the contributions of all members of society. New interpretations
of traditional rhythms are created and solidified, perhaps existing as the
only living examples of abandoned traditional dance practices (Charry
2000, 211). Following Guinea’s example, the nations of Mali, Senegal, and
other newly independent African nations formed their own touring dance
companies. These national ballet companies, then, aided subsequent inde-
pendent African nations in creating national identities after gaining inde-
pendence from their former European colonizers. The companies toured
extensively in Europe, the U.S., and Asia, raising money and awareness for
their respective countries. Individual artists, trained by these “companies”
and sensing a market for their skills, began leaving the national ballets
and settling in the U.S. or Europe in order to teach their art to people in
the West. After twenty-three years with Ballet National Djoliba, Keïta left
in 1986 after Sekou Touré died and as opportunities began to open up for
artists (Billmeier 2007, 20–21). Similarly, after more than twenty years as
lead djembefola, Famoudou Konaté left Les Ballet Africains in 1985 to begin
his own international teaching and performing career (see http://www
.famoudoukonate.com).
Experienced African musicians and dancers such as “Papa” Ladji Ca-
mara, master dancer and djembefola from Les Ballet Africains, were among
the first to settle in New York City, arriving in the late 1950s. They taught
generations of the most accomplished American drummers and dancers,
many of whom were of African descent. The African arts incubated for
years in major cities such as New York and Chicago before becoming a
cultural sensation in the 1990s. An African dance studio, sometimes several,

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Price  •  Rhythms of Culture 241

can now be found in every major city in the United States. Mamady Keïta,
for example, taught in both Europe and the U.S. before he was hired as a
djembe professor for the Zig Zag Percussion School in Belgium in 1988.
After the Belgian school closed, Keïta opened his own school of African
percussion, Tam Tam Mandingue, in 1992. Tam Tam Mandingue is the
world’s first international school of African percussion. Over the years,
Keïta has added affiliates in several European countries, five cities in the
United States, Israel, Japan, Singapore, and Hong Kong (Keïta and Konaté
2011). In 2013, affiliates were added in Portland, Oregon, and Monterey,
Mexico. The headquarters of Tam Tam Mandingue International is located
in Singapore. In the course of his career, Keïta has developed a compre-
hensive pedagogy designed to teach traditional Mandingue rhythms and
culture to musicians more adept with Western musical practices. He trains
and tests his instructors using this method and personally certifies each
professor’s competence to teach the tradition properly. He also requires that
instructors maintain their skill levels by attending regular conferences and
workshops. Using this system of quality control, Keïta aspires to spread
the Mandingue culture and traditions while maintaining the authenticity
of the traditions. Keïta typically teaches, performs, and travels seasonally
between the continents; he hosts drum workshops around the world and
an annual drum camp in his home country of Guinea (or in Senegal).
Having created many original compositions based upon traditional
rhythms, Keita encourages innovation, but he is careful to distinguish his
original material from tradition. He emphasizes that students must learn
the traditional drumming methods and rhythms as well as the history and
cultural context of each rhythm. According to Keïta, he places traditional
and modern rhythms in “different pockets” (Keïta 2013, January 10). The
culture must remain intact and must not be confused with the modern or
ballet-style djembe (Keïta 2011, June 4). Keïta states, “It’s a mission, I’m
a missionary, I am a messenger of my culture. I do this in the world, its
twenty years I have been doing this” (Keïta 2008).
The popularity of African drumming and dancing around the world has
also resulted in an increase in the popularity of the drums in West Africa and
has bolstered local economies with a thriving djembe export market with
international drum merchants. African ballet troupes touring internationally
and foreign drummers and dancers traveling to Africa in order to connect
with local traditions have also contributed to the economies of West African
communities. In response, commercial drum manufacturers such as Remo
have produced their own synthetic, manufactured versions of the popular
djembe, along with compact discs, instructional videotapes, and books of
all kinds. The author once saw thousands of West African djembes spread
across the grounds of Chicago’s DuSable Museum, imported ­specifically

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242 bmr journal

for the museum’s African Festival and sold by dozens of enterprising Af-
rican traders. Such sales are testament to the popularity of the djembe
drum, which has created a largely unanticipated impact: the preservation
of traditional African musical forms, while the status of modern forms of
popular (electronic) music continues to grow at the same time.
Mamady Keita has said that “many players sense secretly that, behind this
music, an interesting, lively history is hiding. The rhythms of the Malinke,
as I convey them, tell about a very old tradition. We, the djembé players,
are a line that transports our history to the present. For this, one does not
have to travel to Africa: we can enjoy the beauty and joy of our rhythms
everywhere” (Billmeier 2007, 11). Performance of these rhythms can serve as
a link to African ancestry and also as a part of processes related to identity
construction and ethnicity. Gerald Béhague writes that “as one of the most
highly structured human cultural expressions, music encapsulates social
groups’ most essential values affecting individual members’ worldviews
. . . that . . . are embedded in the enactment of music performance styles
and occasions” (1994, v). This is part of a process by which a population
ensures its collective survival by replicating its shared identity through
cultural and biological reproduction (Behague 1994, vi, quoting Adams).
Anthony Seegar says that “at times, music may simply be something you
make at church, listen to at the bar, sing around the house, or complain
about when the younger generation listens. Then, at some moment, you
may begin to employ a musical style as a resource to say who you are and
use it to interpret who other people are and to indicate what a community
aspires to” (Seegar 1994, 3). The formation and maintenance of a distinc-
tive group requires “an image or myth with which a group can identify
itself” (Seegar 1994, 3, quoting Davis). This is a function that many African-
American musical styles serve on a fundamental level. For example, singing
an old African-American spiritual at church, such as “Wade in the Water”
or “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot,” may generate deep connections with an
individual’s history and spirituality. Similar congregational hymns, sung
in context, may help form a focus for one’s identity as part of a community,
reaching back to ancestors and to God. African Americans listening to or
performing various African-derived musical forms such as soca, juju, ca-
lypso, or reggae and those choosing to play traditional African instruments
or perform dances from African cultures are, in some ways, also participat-
ing in a wider process of group identity formation. Cultural memory, in this
context the cultural reproduction of African musical styles among people
of African descent, is an important component of group identity. However,
“The power of cultural memory rests in the conscious decision to choose
particular memories, and to give those memories precedence in commu-
nal remembrance” (Rodriguez and Fortier 2007, 31). Therefore, the act of

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Price  •  Rhythms of Culture 243

choosing to learn about and to make African music is part of a conscious

process in which one deliberately makes herself part of a community of
African people. (According to ­Jeannette Rodríguez’s unconscious expres-
sion of African musical styles through cultural reproduction is an important
component of group identity. However, choosing to identity with African
music is part of a conscious process in which a group deliberately makes
themselves [Rodríguez and Fortier, 2007, 31]).
Greg Ince, an African American with Panamanian and Cuban roots, be-
gan his training in traditional African dance at the age of three. Starting as a
young child, he practiced and performed with Papa Ladji’s dance company
and later with New York’s acclaimed International African American Dance
Ensemble. He also drummed frequently with his brother, Walter Ince, an
accomplished American drummer in the African tradition. According to
Greg, African drum and dance is something most African Americans take
to naturally. Although anyone with the motivation can do it, Greg writes,
“the energy in how they [African Americans] approach things is going to
be different. It’s the natural thing for us . . . one of the divine things that
have been given to us by God. It’s part of who we are as a people . . . any
drum. . . . It’s just the essence of us as a people. It was given to us by the
most high” (Ince 2011). Growing up in New York, Greg observed African
Americans who, like himself, were willing participants in the street culture
but were later transformed through exposure to African cultural traditions.
One of his friends, for example, was associated with a gang and attended
dance class with him one time. The transformation was almost immedi-
ate: she devoted herself totally and completely to African arts and culture,
changing her name and her life. Greg also revealed how, in the early days,
Papa Ladji emphasized black solidarity and focused on teaching his art to
people of African descent. “It’s the black experience,” he was fond of say-
ing. Greg said that Papa Ladji was willing to teach Euro-American students
Malinke drumming but saved the most complicated rhythms and most
pertinent cultural information for students of African descent.
The 2011 National Black Theater Festival in Winston-Salem, North Caro-
lina, on August 1–6 was a prime example of a communal expression of
African identity by a group of African Americans. Dance instructors offered
African dance workshops, and members of the local African-American
drum and dance community, professionals and amateurs (including my-
self), participated in nightly drum performances in an outdoor amphithe-
ater. The drumming was a regular and much-anticipated feature of the
biennial Festival. In years past, drumming had taken place informally, on
city sidewalks and under stairwells near the Festival’s epicenter. In 2011,
though, the drumming was presented as ritual, thus elevating the tradi-
tional and spiritual elements of the African culture that the drummers and

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244 bmr journal

dancers represented. During the rituals, African-American drummers and

dancers performed rhythms and dances from the traditional West African
repertoire: Sunun, Lamban, Yankadi/Makru, Mendiani, Dansa, Kassa, and
others would have been recognizable by Keïta, Konaté, and other African
master drummers as their own. However, they would have noticed some
subtle differences between the rhythms and dances these Americans were
playing and those of the masters (that were acquired through daily immer-
sion in the villages and towns of their homeland).
Although some of the rhythmic and performance practices have been
carefully maintained and perpetuated over the past fifty years, traditions
(such as drumming) are subject to change and influences. These influences
include the teachings of African instructors from different ethnic groups
with various levels of knowledge and proficiency, the imprint of modern
African ballet style (Billmeier 2007, 24, 108; Keïta 2011, December 28), the
modifying impacts of African-American aesthetic principles (Sunkett 1995),
and the challenges of importing an oral tradition (rooted in the African
village context) into fast-paced urban societies. Despite these and other
challenges associated with the advancement of African cultural expres-
sion in the United States, small communities of African-American dancers,
percussionists, musicians, and supporters continue to build upon the tradi-
tion. Among these are Greg Ince and dancer Nicole “Shaliah” Haith-Ince
(both being principal performers with Chuck Davis’s Dance Ensemble in
Durham, North Carolina), Wesley Williams (founder of Shua Dance The-
ater in Greensboro, North Carolina), and Atiba Rorie (musician, founder
of the Africa, Unplugged ensemble and African drumming instructor at
Guilford College). Mahiri Fadjimba Keita, a former student of Mamady
Keïta’s, became Tam Tam Mandingue’s first professor and founder of the
Tam Tam Mandingue school in Washington, D.C. Mahiri teaches, performs,
and encourages the social development of youth and adults through par-
ticipation in the African arts (see http://www.mahirikeita.com). These are
among the thousands of drummers and dancers who consciously rekindle
West African values and culture. Through our participation in traditional
African musical culture, we connect to African pasts and with the modern
African-American community. During the biennial Pan African Festival of
global arts in Ghana, my colleague witnessed drums of all sizes and shapes
being off-loaded from the baggage holds of airplanes at Ghana’s Accra air-
port. The drums were arriving from the Americas, from Europe, and from
the islands of the Atlantic and Caribbean. Walking around the airport, she
exclaimed that she could “see the drums of the Diaspora returning home”
(Price 1997). The drums had, indeed, come full circle, from Africa to the
Americas and to Africa again. This journey has spawned creative reinter-

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Price  •  Rhythms of Culture 245

pretations of African musical culture from antebellum slavery to the present

day. Some of the resulting musical forms have reached and impacted many
nations, crossing boundaries rather than creating them. Such a flowering
of African cultural influences in America and the rich musical intersections
that continually inform contemporary genres engage the spirit of Sankofa,
a proverb of Ghana’s Akan people that encourages one to reach back and
recover things once lost or forgotten in order to impact the present and
create a better future.

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identity. Austin, Tex.: University of Texas Press.
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Music and Black ethnicity, edited by Gerald Béhague, 1–13. Miami: North-South
Center Press.
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W. W. Norton.
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Tanya Y. Price, Assistant Professor, Social-Cultural Anthropology, North Carolina
A&T State University, Department of Sociology and Social Work. Dr. Price’s
research and teaching interests include West African and African Diaspora
cultures, cultural identities and the politics of race. Dr. Price is also a percus-
sionist and trap drummer specializing in the dunun/djembe orchestra of the
Mandingue people of West Africa. Selected publications appear in Africanisms
in the Academy (McFarland 2004) and Engines of the Black Power Movement
(McFarland 2007).

ACKNOWLDEGEMENTS: A special thank you to Famoudou Konaté and Mamady Keïta for
their teachings, their generosity, and their willingness to share their time and tremendous
knowledge with me.

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