This is an updated version of a story first published on Nov. 13, 2022. Described as a cross between a harp, a lute, and a guitar, the kora is part of a musical tradition that dates back to the ...

The Djembe: From West African Villages to Global Stages The djembe drum dates back roughly between 400 and 800 years, created ...

“How come we’ve never heard of this beautiful instrument until now?” This was posted by a first-year college student to my world music course discussion board recently. He voiced what many of his ...

NEARLY 800 YEARS AGO, Sundiata Keita founded the largest and greatest kingdom in West African history: the Mali Empire. At its height, around 1300, it stretched for some 2,000 kilometers west to east, ...

African instruments are rich and unique in their sounds. With such uniqueness in sound, they have influenced music from other parts of the world. Here are 7 musical instruments whose origin dates back ...

The soul-shattering abuses suffered by enslaved Africans, who were forcibly stripped of their languages, religions and other key aspects of their culture, were fortunately no match for their ...

If you ever came across African diasporic music in North Carolina with live drums — like, djembes, dununs, shékeres — then there's a good chance master drummer Baba Bradley Simmons was involved.

Described as a cross between a harp, a lute, and a guitar, the kora is part of a musical tradition that dates back to the 13th century Mali Empire, which stretched across much of West Africa. The ...

Early on in his new book, “Custodians of Wonder,” BBC Travel writer Eliot Stein tallies some recent effects of globalization, a process that seems to only speed up. Nine languages, he notes, are lost ...