Percussion, an African contribution to human culture

Percussion is perhaps, after the spoken word, the main communication tool of African societies. It serves to express feelings of sadness or joy, to send messages to other people and to communicate with the spirits.

Examples of African communication systems based on percussion abound. One of them is the case of the Ashantis who sent messages using their drums through many hundreds of kilometers. The messages of drums use the peculiar characteristic of many African languages ​​that being tonal can be reproduced by the drums with relative ease. In some societies the drums are not only the sound and rhythmic base of the ceremonies but it can be said that in certain mode, the drums "speak".

Thus, in many African societies, drum language became a central element of social communication and culture. The Africans who were forcibly transplanted brought the language of percussion to America. They used the drums and other instruments of that type for religious and social celebrations, building them from materials that were within their reach: leather in Montevideo, steel in Port Spain. When they were not allowed to build drums, they developed other forms of percussion, like zapateo. Thus came the tip tap dancing in North America and the malambo in the River Plate.

These influences of African percussion were expressed throughout the American Continent by gemmating rhythmic musical forms and bailabres that gave rise to new cultural identities.

At the same time, many "frivolized" forms of percussion emerged from these types of percussion. As contemporary societies became globalized, they incorporated the sounds and vibrations of percussion, but no longer as a ceremonial framework or method of communication but rather as an instrument of alienation whose future reaches are difficult to foresee.