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Yoruba Drums from Benin, West Africa

Recordings, commentary, and t ranscriptions by Marcos Branda Lacerda.
Edited by the International Institute for Traditional Music, Berlin: in cooperation with the International Council for Traditional Music (UNESCO C)

(P) © 1996 Smithsonian/Folkways Recordings CD 40440

Yoruba Drums contains "1987 recordings of the complex rhythms of the bata and dundun drum ensembles used in Yoruba religious cult worship and divination. The Yoruban drums--the roots of urban African and Afro-Caribbean music--call the divine ancestors (orishas) to earth to possess their mediums. Extensively annotated booklet that describes the orisha legends and the drums and presents a detailed analysis of the drumming."

Yoruba Drums is a "phenomenal collection of Yoruba religious cult and worship music from the Republic of Benin, [which] has resisted cultural overshadowing by neighboring Nigeria and maintains it's own unique and brilliant culture. The collection provides a great overview of the intensely complex and intuitive rhythms of the bata and dundun drum ensembles. It contains fascinating examples of Egungun (dead spirits) cult ceremonial music, which is widely practiced among the Yorubas and represents a link between the dead and the living. With extensive liner notes providing musical overview and cult histories, including relevant mythology, this is an outstanding introduction to the multilinear rhythms of West Africa and it's complex history."

$15.95