Customer Reviews

African Drums - Traditional Mandingue Rhytms

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

As a djembe player, I had to react to seeing this CD being sold on Amazon.com with no reviews to recommend it. Babatundi Olatunji passed away a few years ago, and Mamady is one of the living masters of djembe to carry on the tradition. As his name translates in his native Guinnean, he was born to this, a natural talent. You can't find a better album for playing along on the djembe. This album will take you through your rhythmic paces. This is an early recording with Mamady full of youth and hand speed. He still is full of youth and hand speed, and someone needs to record him on DVD for posterity. The djembe is called a "healing drum." If you play a traditional Twenoboa wood drum, it will infuse the surroundings. The walls and windows of your house will hum to the percussion. His other CDs feature village style singing, the true African meaning of healing as a community. Drum, sing and dance together and you have the African formula of communal harmony that has been done for thousands of years. Primitive? If more people were pounding on drums instead of each other, the world might be a better place. Cheaper than therapy and a great jump start for any drum circle.

You learn something new every day. I saw a comment on here, pertaining to another review, which led me to do some research. I looked at the discography that was published in Mamady's book "A Life For The Djembe", and discovered that this cd is, indeed, NOT by the legendary Mamady Keita, but by someone else. I've never much cared for this cd, and now I understand why! Buy at your own risk!

This is an excellent CD. For those who are interested in African dance, this is an excellent practice CD (nothing replaces live drumming for dance class). My only concern is that some of the labeled songs (rhythms)
appear to be labeled incorrectly. For example: KouKou drumming sounds more like Lamban (the KouKou tape was to slow for that dance but perfect for Lamban), there were a few other examples like that, I could be mistaken, but one should investigate it for themselves.

This product took a little longer to get delivered because of its origin of shipment, but it was well worth the wait. A wonderful CD of African drumming.