The purpose of this site is to provide individuals interested in world music with a comprehensive resource for further exploration and study. Here you can find historical background, video instruction from a master drummer, pictures and audio samples that are relevant to each rhythm. We hope that with this holistic approach we help to preserve the historical ethnic authenticity of the cultures that have produced the music.
This site is a collaboration between master drummer and Dartmouth College professor Hafiz Shabazz and his student Pete Mathias , percussionist and member of Dartmouth's class of 2009.
Professor Shabazz has studied at the University of Ghana and The Federal University of Bahia, Brazil. He has also studied in Cuba with master drummers and folklorists and has performed with Max Roach, Lionel Hampton, and Julius Hemphill in addition to Alhaji Bia Konte, Master Cora and Griot of Gambia, West Africa. He has toured in France, the Carribean, the United States, and Canada. He has taught at the University of California at Berkeley, Duke University and currently teaches at Dartmouth. He is an initiated member of the Ancestral Shrine of the Ashanti Nation in Ghana, West Africa, has authored articles for the Black Music Research Journal, and was a consultant with John Chernoff in the writing of African Rhythms and Sensibilities.
Certain forms of the rumba such as the guanguanco had sexual choreography. Such lewd behavior was anathema to the middle-class and elite Cubans. Not surprisingly, the rhythm was banned during the colonial period. An ordinance from October 30, 1888 announced: [The rumba] dances known as El papalote” and “El yambu” are hereby prohibited, in addition to similar dances known by other names that in their rhythms characteristics, or unbecoming attitudes demonstrate obscenity or infringe upon this directive in other respects. All chiefs of police are to advise themselves of the intent of the present announcement."
Below a Cuban police chief stands aside instruments and ritual items confiscated in a raid of an Abukua society, 1914. [Image Source: Moore, 148].
In order to avoid punishment from austere colonial authorities, the rumberos used makeshift percussion instruments. The wooden fish-crates found on the docks were commonly used for drums. Such creative adaptations were essential to the rhythm’s survival and over the years of its existence, the rumba has fused Spanish and African musical and cultural elements.
Go to the "Region" tab below, click a region of your interest and you will find rhythms which originated from that part of the world. Each of these post includes includes some historical background and video instruction by master drummer Hafiz Shabazz on how to play the rhythmic pattern.
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