The djembe, common throughout all of West Africa, is a skin-covered hand drum that can produce such a broad range of tones that it has been said to speak almost like the human voice itself.
I believe it. By the end of the performance I felt like I was literally hearing human voices.
Let’s Talk: International Day of Drumming and Healing is the signature event of the 400 Years of African-American History Commission. The 400 Years of African-American History Commission Act, signed into law January 8, 2018, established a 15-member commission to coordinate the 400th anniversary of the arrival of the first enslaved Africans in the English colonies. The Let’s Talk: International Day of Drumming and Healing event started at midnight on Juneteeth, in six different countries, and continued until the following midnight.
Drums, banned in parts of America starting in 1740, will rule the day, just as they once did during sacred, healing, and celebratory occasions in Africa. Drums represent connectivity, not just among African Americans, but also among people around the world.
Pine Bluff, AR, Houston, and New Orleans were among the cities in the US in which the event took place. Unity Temple on the Plaza hosted the event in Kansas City, which featured Bird Fleming and the Traditional Music Society’s Soundz of Africa Ensemble and Esoke.
400 years of African American History. The performance will utilize the music and dances from areas of West Africa, such as Mali, Senegal, Gambia, Ghana and Guinea since many enslaved Africans that were brought to the Americas were from this region. It will reveal how the music and dances of African American ancestors unified the village, communicated, commemorated, documented events, engaged communities in royal ceremonies and rituals from birth to death.
The first half of the program featured traditional music and dance. The second half involved the audience in the performance and moved from a dirge mourning those who died in the Middle Passage to a tribute to the Haitian Revolution and ended with a village celebration in which everyone was invited up to dance.
It was magical. My amateurish cell phone videography does not do justice to the performance. I gave up on distracting myself by trying to makes recordings after a couple of numbers and just let myself be absorbed by the music. So I didn’t get video of the showstoppers, but you can get an idea from Traditional Music Society’s YouTube upload at the bottom of the diary.
Here is a more professionally produced video of the Soundz of Africa Youth Ensemble at a Kwanzaa celebration in 2012. As good as they are in this video, they have added seven years worth of skill and artistry since then. The incredible energy level has not changed, though.