Kutiro-Balafon-Sabar = Drums Ensemble…

 

***  Kutiro (Junkuran) – Gambian Tantango Drumming ***

Fabricated By: Chief Yagbe Awolowo Onilu Oakland CA

!!! Drum troupes play for recreational dances and various festivities. The Mandinka, descendants of the Mandeng peoples of western Africa, now reside primarily in Senegal, Gambia, and Guinea-Bissau. Among the Mande people in general, rhythm expressed as drumming is linked with all forms of movement, be it dancing, wrestling, procession, or agricultural labor. 

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***Women of the Calabash…

                ***SIMPLICITY IS THE KEY TO BRILLIANCE…
!!! Ilu-Shekere Agbaye = El Chekere Mundial !!!
!!! Ilu-Shekere Agbaye = El Chekere Mundial !!!

Mistakes Are The Portals of Discovery * Play A Wrong Note = Insignificant * Play Without Passion = Inexcusable

Measure The Breath & The Length – The Hands Reaches Much Higher Than The Head – No Forest Is So Dense That The Iroko Tree Cannot Be Seen. May Your Life Be Clear & Pure Like Water Drawn Early In The Morning…

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RUMBA = La Negra Tiene Tumbao…

            El Espiritu De La Rumba: “Pa Ke Tu Me Llama”

African slaves first arrived in Cuba in the 16th century with the early Spanish settlers. Due to the reliance on sugar as an export during the late 18th and early 19th century, great numbers of slaves were brought to work on the sugar plantations. Where large populations of slaves lived, African religion, dance, and drumming were clandestinely preserved from generation to generation.

During the 19th century in Cuba, specifically in urban Havana and Matanzas, people of African descent originally used the word Rumba as a synonym for party. The term Rumbon is frequently used to denote rumba performances in the streets.

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***Magical Calabash…

***Calabash (Akerengbe-Gourd) History & Cultural Background…

The Myth Of The Sacred Calabash = Mankind’s Most Useful Plant…. Magical Calabash Anthology Of Sacred Wisdom From The Ancestral Mothers And Magic.

The Calabash (Gourd), was one of the first plants cultivated by humans – not for food, but for use as a container.  It came from Africa and has accompanied us around the world for thousands of years.

In Africa, the Calabash (Gourd), plant, has long been used as a food and medicine, and its hard shell as a bottle, a dipper and even an ancient musical instrument. Calabash have traditionally been used to carry medicine, wine and “magic”.  Calabash were also tied to the backs of children and boat people to serve as life preservers. Calabash is also possibly mankind’s oldest musical instrument resonator. It is the only known plant whose use by humans spanned prehistoric cultures across the entire globe, but one thing that has puzzled scientists was how – given its African origins – it came to be so widely used in the Americas.

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