Unidentified Villagers

Village Djembe Documentary

The short documentary by Jeremy Chevrier of Rootsyrecords features Sega Cisse and other villagers from the area of Fuladugu, west of Bamako. There are a lot of familiar rhythms and dances featured in this video, and it’s nice to see footage of them from Fuladugu in contrast to Bamako. Key Moments: 0:00 Jeremy Chevrier Plays the intro […]

January 22, 2015

Festival : Segou, Mali

Malik Drame plays Bara music on bonkolo at a Bamana festival in Segou Mali. Funky! Bonkolo predates Djembe for the Bamana people. Today, in Mali, ancient rhythms like Bara get played on djembe, too. It’s good to get an idea of the origional instrumentation for these rhythms. The ergonomics of bonkolo tend to result in […]

January 12, 2015

Korojuga Music : Segou, Mali

A procession plays Korojuga music and enters a compound in Segu, Mali. We like this video because: In this video we see the group play a rhythm with a cycle of 5 notes. This is rare in Mande music. It reminds us that there’s always an exception to the rule.

November 23, 2014

Soli : Mamady Traore

This is a good video highlighting the goloba or “echauffment” of Soli (Suku) from Upper Guinea. In this video, you’ll find not only djembe playing, but also useful demonstrations of the Sangban echauffment phrase and versions of echauffment dance steps.

July 11, 2014

Folklore : Marena, Mali

Nice playing on low-tuned djembes in Marena, a village north of Kita, Mali. More and more villagers from this region have been uploading videos of their villages’ festivities. There’s a young player in the group with a mohawk, but these guys still play juicy, roots style music. Check out how sweetly the women of the older […]

May 14, 2014