African Drum Ensemble brings the beats

By Aly Van Dyke

Originally published November 25, 2009 at 11:57 p.m., updated November 30, 2009 at midnight

Every Monday in a cramped room on the bottom floor of Murphy Hall, five people sit in a semi-circle, hugging three-foot drums between their thighs. With eyes cast down in concentration, their hands skip across the surface of the drums like lightning, producing a rhythmic thunder that rumbles through the building.

The members of the African Drum Ensemble at KU have practiced the rhythms enough that the tones, basses and slaps on the Djembe drum come automatically.

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African Drum Ensemble

The KU African Drum Ensemble plays in Murphy Hall every Monday.

The KU African Drum Ensemble plays in Murphy Hall every Monday.

“Once you get in rhythm for 20 minutes, all you think about is the drumming,” Lindsay Ryan, Kansas City, Kan. sophomore and vice president of ADEKU, said. “Everything kind of goes away.”

Through the sounds of their beats, Ryan and her companions are carried to a time of oral tradition and harvest rituals in West Africa, when music wasn’t merely something to listen to — it was the life, the sweat and the heart of the community.

“Once you get going, it’s like a heartbeat, it’s like an erratic heartbeat,” Ryan said. “Once everything is in unison, all you hear is just one beat.”

The drum ensemble started in the Spring 2007 at the suggestion of Khalid El Hassan, former associate director of the Kansas African Studies Resource Center, and with the support of former Chancellor Robert Hemenway. The group is directed by Dylan Bassett, a local percussion instructor, and is mostly funded by performance fees and money from Student Senate. The funds pay for drumming classes for group members and drum repair. The ensemble meets every Monday from 8 p.m. to 10 p.m. in room 110 of Murphy Hall.

Pulling from Bassett’s 15 years of experience in West African drumming tradition, the members play the traditional rhythms from the ancient empire of Mali and the cultural beats of Ghana and Senegal.

Bassett said the most beautiful part of the African rhythms was the way the diverse beats worked together.

“It’s that conflict between two different rhythms that wouldn’t seem to fit together,” he said. “When they are brought together, that’s what makes the music have such a power.”

In that sense, the rhythms reflect the range of people in ADEKU — from Ryan, a 20-year-old colleg student, to Sandy Beverly, a Lawrence resident and stay-at-home mom.

Ryan said what struck her was the fact that these civilizations needed music for more than just entertainment. They needed it to tell the stories of their past, to celebrate the birth of a child, to mourn a loss.

She said one song, the “Dundunba” or “strongman dance,” was used by an ancient Guinea civilization to settle disputes.

“Their music in Africa is part of their everyday life,” Ryan said. “We view music as strictly leisure, it’s not something that gets us through the day.”

Ryan said she hoped to use the expressive power of the African drum in her career as a musical therapist.

Jake Herman, Manhattan sophomore and president of the group, said he had learned to appreciate how much the people of West Africa helped one another.

“I think that over there they have a better sense of brotherhood than we have here in the States,” he said. “It seems like people are more willing to help each other than being caught up in their own life.”

One song, the harvest song “Sunu” of the Mali empire, exemplifies this attitude, Herman said.

Bassett said the Mali used “Sunu” to help laborers stay on their feet for another day of harvesting.

“Everybody would be tired, and then when they started singing, you’d have the energy to be able to continue going,” he said. “Music was part of the work.”

As thriving as the group may be now, members agree it’s missing a key element — dancers.

“In Africa, there’s not a separate word for music and dance,” Ryan said.

Bassett said the West African drumming tradition was meant to have dancers. But ever since the dance instructor left for London last year, ADEKU has yet to find a replacement, turning the ensemble into a percussion performance group that lacks the traditional presentation of the songs. Herman said the group was considering actively searching for a new dance instructor.

The ensemble’s last practice of the semester will be Dec. 7. But Bassett said the first two sessions next semester, Jan. 18 and Jan. 25, will be open for new enrollees to start fresh on a new set of songs. As of now, membership for the ensemble is free.

— Edited by Amanda Thompson

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