From Africa to Appalachia

With support from Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation, through their Folk Arts Outreach Project, the Virginia Folklife Program brought Malian griot and n'goni player Cheick Hamala Diabate together with master bluegrass banjoist Sammy Shelor and multi-instrumentalist Danny Knicely in Charlottesville, Virginia, for three days of collaboration, fellowship and musical exchange.

[@billybareblu]

The universal language, music builds bridges, brings us together and makes for a party

[@FuzzyMarineVet]

What do you get when you throw African, Celtic and Native American musicians into a room with their own instruments and traditional music? Bluegrass.

[@josephperkins4080]

Never forget its predominantly Celtic in origin

[@purplehaze2250]

@@josephperkins4080 that's funny, tell another one 😂🤣

[@raphrobe-9896]

@@josephperkins4080 No, it's African, stop tryna claim our culture, get yours.

[@bandaqueenlove9134]

@@josephperkins4080 no it's not

[@KushaDwipa]

@@rdb.9 Africa influenced Scottish and European music as much as American. : )

[@anaphylastiks]

Musical history never lies. pentatonics.

[@anaphylastiks]

@@wk8570 Of course. What's your point?

[@wesleycatlett9144]

It is so wonderfully ironic that some of the most historically hated ethnic groups in America collectively gave birth to the most foundationally "American" music styles in existence. How many of the founders of bluegrass, jazz, folk, and blues artists were told that they "didn't belong in this country" because they were of African, Irish, or Caribbean descent? Let alone the Native American musicians and the atrocities they faced. So glad we get to collectively enjoy this together now.

[@hinezilla]

This has made my entire week.

[@alexisroberts1871]

Goose bumps baby! Think of all the beauty we can create if we put down racism and hatred. This was beautiful.

[@tonyamcrae9775]

Excellent musicians. I feel the influence for rock n' roll!

[@MaryJaneHancock]

Excellent, thank you for posting.

[@simplelife4019]

So good to listen and to see, break the borders that music industry tries to hold on...

[@ATandT2U]

Excellent...shared to Facebook!! Richmond Folk Festival 2014...this October!!

[@shelbyn9335]

The Jimi Hendrix of the Banjo!

[@kemetnubiakamp]

One of the instruments played by the griot was the akonting/ekonting. It also was in the plantation painting. That's the direct ancestor of the American banjo even though the ngoni is as well. The akonting is likely older. It most likely is the mdw ntchr (hieroglyph) symbol for nfr (beautiful). Even though by the New Kingdom the lute played is the ngoni which has many other names in West Africa.

[@PickedOff100]

except it was not nor is it now played anything like the modern Banjo, invented by Joel Sweeney..

[@kemetnubiakamp]

@@PickedOff100 Joe Sweeney played the Minstrel banjo in blackface. It's the same instrument no matter the change in playing style. Even the name was the same. Sweeney was imitating and even mocking Black people even if he did admire the instrument that remains an African American instrument to this day.

[@wk8570]

​@@kemetnubiakamp No, it's not the same instrument. Clearly you are not a banjo player nor a ngoni player. Furthermore, logically the banjo is derived from a west African instrument but it is not an African American instrument just like the electric guitar is not a Spanish American instrument; they are both just American instruments derived from the African instrument and the Spanish instrument respectively. The drumset is an American instrument. It is not a European, Chinese or Turkish American instrument, since it was invented in America, even though it is derived from marching band drums, Chinese drums and wood blocks and Turkish cymbals. That's just cultural diffusion 101.

[@kemetnubiakamp]

@@wk8570 The banjo is an African instrument of the West Indies where the oldest accounts are of white plantation owners documenting their enslaved Africans playing a "banja"/"banjo (note there is a lute instrument called "bunchundo" that exists in Gambia is possibly the origin of the American name but this instrument is widely West African by various names)) with a calabash gourd resonator. The same instrument is depicted in a 1700s painting of a South Carolina plantation, called The Old Plantation, of enslaved Africans playing instruments - including the banjo - and dancing. Subsequently, the older paintings of the wood-framed banjo that was created by a white man also are of African players hence the several "banjo player" paintings. When whites began playing the banjo, they did so in Minstrel show blackface and even hired black banjo players to blacken their faces to perform banjo and sing in the same shows for white audiences. The banjo is an African American (broadly because it includes the Caribbean) instrument that whites eventually copied.

[@kemetnubiakamp]

@@wk8570 Also there is another video with this same Akonting player. It's the same instrument just as an electric guitar is the same as an acoustic guitar and can't be claimed as a different instrument because of changes in development.

[@tonyamcrae9775]

This is awesome!

[@OldBillOverHill]

I recall a PBS documentary about the development of the banjo. Lacking gourds one variant that is still being made uses slices from a two ton single axle Ford truck. I'm still looking for it. Something about the mild steel and cooling flutes make this banjo unique. Anybody know the doc I'm looking for or the name of the luthiery?

[@frizmagnet2246]

Wish they’d let him play it’d be nice to hear how the banjo likely originally sounded.

[@SurprizedDaily]

sure would've enjoyed being there no doubt....when's the next get together like this? We're on Franklin county, Virginia here....great video an collaboration...thanks for posting n sharing this....In Lak'ech

[@laurareed2614]

Awesome. Uncle Ran I'm sure U like these songs

[@derrickcompher3624]

Afrain's play banjo likes it's guitar I LOVE IT

[@spiritguidethee9992]

12:13 ❤

[@missbritt288]

I wish they would have stopped soloing over the African dude and let him actually lead , playing abrasive clawhammer over his delicate Mande classical Kora scales ...

[@LordBaca]

It’s about the layering of sounds. Even the subtlest notes make a huge difference in a song

[@mississippijohnfahey7175]

I wonder if they should have just turned him up, or maybe run the audio through a compressor and let his instrument sidechain the other two. I like their sound together, but I agree, some of what he was doing was lost to the swell of sounds

[@saracatniss3106]

Ikr

[@emarkjacobs]

clawhammer! 🤣🤣

[@KushaDwipa]

That's what I'm talking about. : )

[@joshuawilliams8252]

It's a lot of people in the comments about the banjo essentially trying specifically to assign credit for it to one culture or another so I'm just going to take a moment to point out to everyone that human history has shown a lot of linear thinking among various human cultures. In isolated groups we've essentially invented the same things over and over again whether they are tools, weapons, musical instruments or other things. So it's almost pointless to place any of these as belonging to a specific culture unless they are a completely unique item with no like designs from elsewhere.

[@joshuawilliams8252]

And if you are someone who's actively doing those things in the comments here, you're essentially doing the exact opposite of what this video is about

[@markbare2817]

The banjo is an evolution, just like guitar was. Types of stringed instruments go back to way before Old Testaament times.🎼🎵🎵🎼🎼

[@farley576]

there is no ignoring the historical fact that the West Africans brought on slave ships en masse to the american south also brought their instrument making techniques and traditional music to america, resulting in the creation of the five string banjo. it was NOT created in isolation, the people who first invented a banjo like instrument (the akonting) brought those techniques, if not the actual instruments themselves, to america further modernizing them later with industrialization and such.

[@BURGRKNG]

Is there a name for the category of tune they ended up playing together so we can research it on our own if we want?

[@eldonhagen1257]

I think it was just a "banjo jam" that came together by each players' special heritage and individual approach to banjo, and what makes it work is the magical nature of the banjo itself...

[@walterperry4565]

OMG🤯🙈🙄🙀😨👀👁

[@librandy77]

Brilliant🪕🪕🪕

[@zavierlee695]

Whoa where the fuck did the gypsy jazz come from.

[@darz3829]

If one sits at the piano one can approximate what they are doing. First, hold down the sustain pedal. Then play a repeating pattern with the left hand (no more that three chords). Finally pick out a single string melody. Keep doing that forever.

[@waynedowden4487]

There are not banjos.

[@vividlybeats6058]

The banjo is not african instrument. The akonting was the west African precursor to the banjo. They are not the same thing. The modern banjo is a European version made to European tastes and music. It became entirely a different thing. It was then added as an instrument to traditional scots Irish music which then morphed into Appalachian bluegrass and old tyme music genres we see today. Modern banjo is separate from the akonting and not African at all.

[@ABlue-iz4rg]

No it isn't, the banjo is an instrument created by Africans/African Americans and was a plantation instrument. Stop trying to distort history.

[@vividlybeats6058]

@@ABlue-iz4rg it was not. it was called a totally different name. It was the akonting and only had three strings. The modern banjo is played different and looks different. It is a euro american creation inspired by the akonting or the akonting is the precursor but not the same. Maybe you should not distort history and get your facts straight.

[@ABlue-iz4rg]

@@vividlybeats6058 you should get YOUR facts straight. The Banjo is a plantation instrument created by my people period. I don't know why you can't accept that. The Banjo and the akonting are 2 separate instruments, stop trying to distort my people's history.

[@vividlybeats6058]

@@ABlue-iz4rg Because its not true. White European people made the modern banjo to white European musical tastes. The akonting is the precursor. If you don't like that that is all you. Its a separate instrument different from the original black instrument which was called the Akonting. Black people never want to claim the banjo except for when they want clout from whites so it does not surprise me your wasting my time argueing otherwise.

[@ABlue-iz4rg]

@@vividlybeats6058 When you look up the Banjo and the stories of people playing the Banjo, its about Black Americans. Again YOU are the person in denial, people like you could never bring yourself to believe that Black people created something whether it be an instrument or modern civilization. With that being said I'm done with you, you can go off in your delusional world.