West African Kettle drum

[bubudi]

sounds like a good cd. i have the sabar cd by the same producers (with mapathe diop) and also their bougarabou cd (saikouba badji) and those are great. tabala music is not as polyrhythmic though, probably due to its roots in qadriyya, a sufi sect from the middle east...hence a more middle eastern melange on african drums.

i don't know about the metal rings making it non-traditional. djembes didn't used to have the metal rings either... bougarabous used to be peg tuned like the sabar. but they are still traditional drums...tradition is not static but very much an organic thing.

there is a limit to what people will accept though. for instance, lug-tuned djembes are generally not accepted as djembes. neither will ones made from fibreglass or particle wood. as wood gets scarcer, people get busier and the technology improves, perhaps some of those things will become widely accepted many years from now.

[bops]

You make a very good point about tradition changing over time... probably it would be best to carry on that discussion in a new thread.

Since we were talking about Bote, I did post some video of some nice bote playing from the group Baga Fote. You'll see a solo by the young Mamady Keita... enjoy

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[James]

It looks like Mamady's house...

I wonder how long ago that was.

It never ceases to amaze me, the great home videos that are out there...

[bops]

This was shot in January 07 (just prior to the strike). It's a house that M'Bemba rented for us, in Taouya Corniche.

Thanks for the props on the video - I always try to clean them up a little before posting them.

[bubudi]

that's a nice video, but if you want some old style susu music featuring the bote you can't go past this:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d0sfQ41wx6c[/youtube]

[Bingi_chile]

in case you were wondering, your drums are made of lenke wood.

According to the shopkeeper, it is made from dugara wood.

[bubudi]

According to the shopkeeper, it is made from dugara wood.

that is possible although it looks more like lenke to me from the photo.