Djembe

When people think ‘percussion,’ the first things that comes to mind, if anything, is snare drum, bass drum, marimba, and other common concert band instruments. However people neglect to realize the hundreds of different, unique, instruments that belong to the percussion family, including the djembe. It is a drum that has a history full of rich and brilliant tapestry of oral tradition along with generations of musicians and story tellers. Its purpose is to not only for entertainment but to tell stories of events that have happened or that are happening.(3) The djembe traditions emerged in Africa from the Maninka and Susu people of the Malian Empire and in Guinea around the 1200s.(2) The blacksmiths, known as Numu, were the first to have built the drum. They would beat on the instrument while they worked melding iron ore. As the Numu migrated throughout West Africa, they would bring their traditions and customs with them, including the djembe.(1) Apart from the Numu, there are many myths to how the djembe was created. One story starts by telling that a village idiot’s wife had pounded a huge hole in a motar, which was widely used in West Africa for food preparation. The husband then laid goat skin over the motar head constructing an object that will, in time, transform into today’s djembe.(3) Another tale regarding the creation of this drum says that chimpanzees were the first to have had the drums. Trapper, So Dyeu, was out in the forest and caught a chimpanzee that had a drum. He took the drum and brought it back to his village. This story explains how we got the first drum and why apes beat their chests with their fists. (3) The djembe was not revealed outside of West Africa until the 1950s when Fodéba Keita established Les Ballet Africains in 1952, which incorporated its sound. The ballet traveled all around Europe and Sékou Touré, Guinea’s president, said it was their first national ballet. He and Keita used the ballets to demonstrate the