Saikouba Badjie
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Saikouba Badjie
Bougarabou
Village Pulse (www.villagepulse.com)

cd cover The Jola people of Casamance say that the bougarabou drum first came to them in a dream. When you listen to this recording of drumming by master Jola drummer Saikouba Badjie, you can appreciate the mystery and importance placed on this humble but powerful drum, the focal point of their music and dance traditions.

Saikouba earns his living drumming for communities of his native Jola people in Casamance (the southwestern region of Senegal) and in neighboring regions of the Gambia and Guine�-Bissau. This field recording, captured with excellent clarity in 1994 in Gambia, showcases Saikouba's mastery of the Jola bougarabou drumming tradition. The drums are played to accompany dancing that celebrates the harvest, marriages, naming ceremonies and funerals of elder women. Performances typically start in the evening and continue through to daybreak-the drummers performing non-stop while being fed by an assistant who also mops the sweat from their brow.

Today, the djembe, with origins in Guinea, is the most well-known West African drum outside Africa. The bougarabou is a relative of the djembe, with some important differences. The bougarabou usually has a calf skin head (rather than goat skin). Combined with the drum's taller and narrower profile, it creates a rounder, mellower tone, somewhat like the Cuban conga drum. Another significant difference is that while djembe music (and most West African drum music, for that matter) is played by groups of drummers with one person per drum, bougarabou music is played by one drummer, performing on up to four drums at once, accompanied only by the singing and clapping of the dance circle.

This disc contains a variety of bougarabou music, performed on a collection of four drums. Half of the tracks are traditional rhythms, and the rest are improvisations, some performed on only one drum and others using up to the full set of four. The sound of the drums is crisp yet full and satisfying, and the rhythms are mostly up-tempo, intended for dancing. Saikouba drums with a set of banana-shaped bells on his wrists, which add a jingling rhythmic accompaniment to his complex rhythms. During some of the more energetic passages, the incessant jangling can become annoying, sometimes obscuring the underlying intricate percussive mastery, but overall the mix and performance is excellent. On some tracks Saikouba is accompanied by a chorus of women clacking pond fronds and joined by the singer Malamin "Modlamine" Kujabi, whose full, earthy voice effortlessly rolls off flowing melodic passages with a chorus of female singers backing him up.

It's easy to appreciate how this drumming can keep dancers going all night. When you put on the disc, it's almost impossible to stop yourself from dancing. And why should you? Enjoy this music for what it is, a fascinating, authentic and thoroughly invigorating introduction to a vibrant West African drumming tradition. - Barry Hall

Village Pulse CDs are available from cdRoots


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