How banning the African drum gave birth to American music | Chris Johnson | TEDxHudson
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- Опубликовано: 2 ноя 2014
- This talk was given at a local TEDx event, produced independently of the TED Conferences. How can we understand a culture if its very means of communication have been banned? Chris Johnson examines the role of the drum in African American Culture and American History.
Contributing to the contemporary scholarship surrounding African American culture, Chris Johnson looks to the past and the present for defining symbols. Johnson is currently an independent scholar, most recently an Assistant Professor of Culture and Mediaat Eugene Lang College in New York City. As a Fulbright Senior Scholar, both teaching and doing research, at Westfälische Wilhelms-Universitat in Münster, Germany and a Research Fellow at the W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for Afro-American Research at Harvard University, Johnson has focused on the role African culture has played in shaping ideas in American society. He and his wife reside in New York City and Hudson. | blackvistas.com
About TEDx, x = independently organized event In the spirit of ideas worth spreading, TEDx is a program of local, self-organized events that bring people together to share a TED-like experience. At a TEDx event, TEDTalks video and live speakers combine to spark deep discussion and connection in a small group. These local, self-organized events are branded TEDx, where x = independently organized TED event. The TED Conference provides general guidance for the TEDx program, but individual TEDx events are self-organized.* (*Subject to certain rules and regulations)
This explains why the drum is more prevalent in the Caribbean and some parts of South America
It was banned in some Caribbean territories such as Trinidad. This lead to the development of the steel pan.
Linus TheXman
How does it explain that?
The Australian aborigines had drums so did the Chinese and the Mongols and everyone else that's ever been on this planet
Piman Mann Jaques
What territories was it banned in and when?
@@ItsNotRealLife we are talking about African drums, Peter. Why some descendants kept playing their drums and why some did not. Stay on the subject.
LittleGothGirl
I refuse!
What's wrong don't you like intelligent discourse?
Aren't Aborigines Africans
My father who was born in 1905 taught us how to do ..The Ham Bone , basically turning your entire body into drums
My grand children now 6 and 4 sing that song that was passed down from I don't know how long, but it's been from father to son.
My grand children now 6 and 4 sing that song that was passed down from I don't know how long, but it's been from father to son.
My grand children now 6 and 4 sing that song that was passed down from I don't know how long, but it's been from father to son.
Its amazing the more they try to stop us the more we shine ☀🌍☀🌍☀🌍
aquinas62
But you're all so poor
“I know thy works, and tribulation, and POVERTY, (but thou art rich) and I know the blasphemy of them which say they are Jews, and are not, but are the synagogue of Satan.”-Revelation 2:9
We know...wait for it 😉
“They will lend to you, but you will not lend to them. They will be the head, BUT YOU WILL BE THE TAIL”- Deuteronomy 28:44
Yea we in last place right right now 🤷🏾♂️👍🏾
@@ItsNotRealLife really? Because last time I checked, my natural hair was deemed unprofessional. You want to try again?
@@ItsNotRealLife you couldn't measure up to our standards of prosperity. So you created your own.
New Orleans (& Congo Square, in particular), have often been cited as links to Africa that enabled the survival of African culture, in the diaspora; (With Louisina being colonized by the French, a different set of laws applied to enslaved Africans (which, in many instances, did not initially ban the use of drums, such as at Congo Square, in New Orleans, where the former slaves were allowed to gather, to dance, drum, and practice their culture, on sundays).
There were times, during Louisiana’s early history, when the drumming in Congo Sq was quashed, by local authorities (particularly, following the Haitian revolution, which was especially significant, as thousands of former planters/ plantation owners, were forced to relocate/emigrate from Hispaniola/ San Domingues (now, the Dominican Republic &?Haiti).
Likewise, in many other parts of the African diaspora (particularly, throughout the Caribbean, and in the areas now commonly referred to as “Latin” America), Local governance under different colonizing powers (other than the British) gave rise to a different set of laws/rules governing slaves that some historians say were more “laissez faire”, less bent on control, and more culturally tolerant - allowing for the survival (& perhaps, the transplanting) & resurgence of African culture - If we examine the music & culture of nearly every Caribbean country, we see a similar cultural history, where African elements have flourished and become a significant part of those cultures, and their music;
Likewise, we see this in the Carnival culture of Brazil (especially, in the Bahia region), and throughout “Latin” America. In the US, that link to Mother Africa, no doubt, played an enormous role, in the music that came out of New Orleans, and Louisiana (not only the birth of Jazz, but also of Rhythm & Blues, and much of the music that would eventually come to be known as Rock’n Roll).
Thank you for the information and specific placenames and practices you described. Do you have any links or titles, author names etc for further reading, watching, listening? Channels that are helpful?
The beat comes from within. ✊🏾✊🏾✊🏾✊🏾✊🏾✊🏾✊🏾✊🏾✊🏾✊🏾✊🏾✊🏾✊🏾✊🏾✊🏾✊🏾✊🏾✊🏾
Thanks for posting this. This is the exact same discussion/evidence that I use in my drumming classroom. Great to see that others are asserting the history. I will now use this video in my class to give more confirmation.
Banjo came from West Africa, Duke. It is called the Ahkonting, played by the Jolof Tribe
@Frostgrl681, that struck me also.
Exactly. And the banjo was played in a wide variety of places in the Americas, not just the USA. It’s not an American invention. It also went by various similar names like “banzul” etc
@Zenme Yangzi OK THE "BANJO" WAS MADE BY THE BRITISH. maybe that makes your ego soar
The banjo didn’t come from Africa physically. The Africans new how to construct the instrument but we used different material
musali Francis
Africa must have a lot of good banjo players
This dude really chilled me out the way he speaks and the pace at which he does so is great! Insightful talk also
@Moor Wakanda yep the language of lying
@@pedrojello8983 🖕🏽🖕🏽🖕🏽
Great explanation for those that don't know the history, and I particularly appreciated the detail about the gumbe drum, as this box drum was brought back to Africa through Jamaican maroons repatriated to Sierra Leone - the gombe is used in Ghana and although it appears to be a traditional instrument, it was likely popularized by the asiko music that spread from Sierra Leone after the repatriation.
Very informational and nice! I really like the way he explains and speaks slowly so people can hear and comprehend at the same time.
Wow. Great speaker and his approach is gentle
Thank you for this talk!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I would have been thoroughly impressed if he had a concluded with a picture of Warren baby dodds from New Orleans that played with King Oliver in Chicago...one of the great drummers of all times... And he was also the first drummer to record drum solo albums for instruction
Very useful. Thank you!
Interesting how the "ban" led to innovation.
They tried it.
Now we understand the need for a DRUM MACHINE.
They can't stop us. We always find a way.
Wow! Such an insightful expose".
Man! Learn Something New Every Day.
Very informative. Thank you very much.
Wow it's amazing how strikingly similar this evolution was in Trinidad & Tobago for us with repeated banning, reinventing with bamboo sticks, the string band and WWII with no Carnival for 3 years prompting the birth of our national instrument, the STEELPAN (not the steel drum as some boldfaced likely North American decided to rename it and the name persists to date)
"Gimme me dis, gimme me dat, gimme back everything you got"...-Mutabaruka
*”The Negroes... formerly on their Festivals were allowed the use of trumpets after their Fashion, and Drums made of a piece of a hollow Tree, covered on one end with any green Skin, and stretched with Thouls or Pins. But making use of these in their Wars at home in Africa, it was thought to much inciting them to Rebellion, and so they were prohibited by the Customs of the Island.”*
*Sir Hans Sloan’s, 1689*
*see TedxHudson: “How banning the African drum gave birth to American music” by Chris Johnson*
Very captivating speaker.
The drum also played a very significant role in religion and spirituality. Hence the Shango/Orisha rhythms of Trinidad and the use of drums in other Yoruba derived faiths of the Caribbean.
I am inclined to think that banning drums had a lot to do with Christianity and suppressing other religious beliefs.
CY D And now Most people throughout the African diaspora are stuck on non sense Abrahamic religions.
CY D And now most people throughout the African diaspora are stuck on non sense Abrahamic religions.
@@001islandprincess Those non sense Abrahamic religions were brought to consciousness by East Africans and later Co opted by the West. If you think African belief systems are non sense that's on you.
Came here from a film about gospel music and how it developed. It touched on the cultural development, haven’t finished watching yet but what I have seen so far, was very uncritical of the ways that this was used to suppress original cultures in favor of replacing them with others. Ended up here in a search for a better history of the development of music, culture, religion in all this.
Consequently, the first music may have been invented in Africa and then evolved to become a fundamental constituent of human life, using various different materials to make various instruments.
Dear Dr. Chris Johnson i really commend your well articulated presentation that is loaded with a lot of information to feed upon. May i point out that there's No "War Drums" because it is not the object or the seize of the Drum but the Beat , the sound of the drumming that dictates War, Dance, celebration or Funneral.
In this you exposed how the modern drumset came about - Thank you Very much!!!
thank about it all that dusting no talantad socoul Artis nastu pofanat music Bring Back the Drums sprate tral drums was ban to creat cunfusan among us
Wow I loved your explanation and detail of this important topic. Beauty is only skin deep ha that is drum skin.
Interesting review of the history of African drums and drumming in the Americas, and how it influenced American music and its instrumentation. .
This is such an important narrative. It left me with so much hope.
Afro spirit...Even though it's not made for us it must work for us
Drums gives off good vibration
Yes and Banning the drum in Trinidad led to the development if the steel pan probably the most exciting musical instrument in the world certainly the only one developed in the 20th century.
Thank you.
Everything is always About Africa bless you miotherland
Ndonue Takwi
Actually no.... This video is explaining how African Americans being STRIPPED of African culture gave birth to American culture (which was heavily influenced by African Americans not Africans).
Anne Jackson
And.....
The roots of Afro American music was African influenced ...The drum was substituted by the enslaved Africans in forms of stick pounding, Juba (foot stomping, handing clapping) and other African made and inspired instruments like the Washtub Bass, Diddley bow, Wash Board, Gourd Fiddle, Banjo and Quills. Rhythmic singing styles that the enslaved Africans practiced such as Call and Response, Field Holler and Ring Shouts pushed the music further and gave us room to evole...Then if you read different accounts the drum was not entirely outlawed all throughout America ...Certain places in the Sea Islands continued making African influenced Drums (Drums and Shadows) ....Yes there is a level of uniqueness to Afro American music yet we shouldn't get lost in it
We (of the African Diaspora) may of lost some customs, but that foundation is still embedded
@@solsoul6449 actually Africa is the roots and center of everything
I know that he's dropping dimes...but that fact that he ain't got a belt on is really irking me.
Plus he got the swag of the doctor on ST Voyager.
That means his pants were probably altered or bespoke. Often bespoke pants have no loops.
It's slightly annoying
@DayWalker and his manliness as well, also his antiperspirant.
Yes, I noticed the sweat under his armpit and the Belt issue too. However, The Belt reminded me of Fela Anikulapo Kuti, the Legend African musician who NEVER wore a belt either, for a particular reason that i don't remember right now.
I wish you wouldn’t have pointed that out. Lol
The prohibition against wearing tartan and playing bagpipes were part of the penal laws introduced by the Hanoverian British Government after the failed 1745 uprising in Scotland and the UK and aimed specifically at breaking those Highland clans who had supported the previous Jacobite dynasty in their attempt to regain the thrones of Scotland & England (not all clans supported the Jacobites). So it was definitely in Britain but the ban was not introduced in Ireland which was also part of the UK at that time.
Ireland was not part of the UK until the act of union in 1801.
This is how you tell history. Perfect 👏
Any idea about the art work shown in the background in Max Roach's photo at 9.09?
vinyalex If anyone has knowledge of the art work, please share! Thank you!
Btw the Banjo has roots in the Hausa culture of northern Nigeria as well and it migrated north where the Kano people brought it to Morocco and it became the Kanaoua music which became Gnawa
He reminds me of that guy from curb your enthusiasm
Larry David
Excellent, congratulations...Fine...
I hope his professors apologized.
They never do
Missed talking about "Pattin' Juba"
This was my thought. Especially because it lead to the creation of the tap dance...which had a huge influence on music and American culture.
What! The bagpipes were banned in Scotland and also the kilt was banned.
👊🏾
Robert Johnson: I invented modern, American rockabilly music.
Chris Johnson: Sir, have we met?
The Yoruba talking drum to this day is used to communicate in Nigeria.
There is a war drum in the Ashanti Kingdom. It sounds like a lion roaring literally. Look it up on RUclips. But was blown away at the end the drum set created by African Americans
GOGO Life TRUTH
Loved the talk but aren't bagpipes Scottish not Irish?
Good Ted talk! Great information... however, I just can't get over the fact that you chose not to wear a belt! 😲🤦
Is it possible that he's not conditioned to just wear a belt, I think he would wear it if the trouser wasn't fitting so neatly, which is a real purpose of a belt.
😳if playing an African drum, develops a SixPack (abs).... I’ll be buying one on Amazon today 🙌🏼💪🏼
LOL!
Bro stop eating fast food you're good to go. More fruits.
When there is a will there is a way
Brilliant......
✌🏾
many things are wrongly (my opinion) banned today. It depends on the ruling culture of the time.
drums aleady used 20,000 years in Afrika to heal the sick but the western word took over! so sad!
mandy green
Drums can't heal the sick.
The Western world have had drums since the beginning of time, it is the oldest instrument in the world
*Neanderthal literally smacks rock with stick*
Neanderthal: This is an instrument now.
@@ItsNotRealLife Neanderthals have no drums
Yes a drum can heal the world it's been proven over n over again vibrations research is what you need to do hon
I'm from Africa the drum is not just an instrument... It's used in rituals, for a reason. The texture of the drum is not always the same, the skin used to make the drum is not always the same. For example a drum that is to be played for a king would be made of elephant skin. I can't go into full detail but the drum is the heart of Africa. It didn't come from the West. The west didn't have any rhythm back then.
Africans came up with the banjo. Didn't know that.
I think he meant it metaphorically because it looks like a drum.
Yeah, it’s an African instrument.
It’s an African instrument that was modernized by whites by adding more strings and a slightly different frame style. The name Banjo is also African.
Everything you know as a human, may well have it's origin in Africa.
That it?
No air conditioning?
The English banned the Scot’s tartan.
No they didn't, the tartan was a victoriana myth
First Church Truth of God broadcast 1512-1513 April 4th, 2021 Sunday evening
What is the connection between African and the Jewish people
Africans are just people from Africa. There's no connection.
I have one notable complaint - there is no such thing as "the" African drum. There are hundreds, thousands of types of African drums, and there are many words for them. Ngoma/goma is the word for drum in Bantu languages across West Africa and is probably the most widespread name for drum yet there are many types that this one word describes as Bantu is the largest language group in the continent. Djembe is the most well known coming from the Mande Empire and is used across Guinea, Mali, Senegal, the Gambia, Ivory Coast, and Burkina Faso, but there are so many other drums! In Ghana alone there are: atsimevu, sogo, kidi, kroboto, totogi, cagan from the Ewe; lunga (dondro) and gungan (brekete) from the Dagomba; atumpan, fontomfrom, kodum, aburukuwa, apentemma from the Ashanti/Akan. And that is only three ethnic groups out of seventy (70), although they are three of the largest. The drum presented in this presentation looks most similar to the apentemma from the Ashanti/Akan, but with thousands of drums across the continent it could likely be from elsewhere.
Of course this is correct in an African Continental context. He, however, is discussing in an American Continental context in the land that became the United States whereby Africans, African-Americans in the circumstances adapted and many times consolidated cultural items while being constantly persecuted for practicing their Africana so him referring to the 'African Drum' is really him alluding to that reality - that to Afro-Americans what mattered is that it was brought with us from our ancestral homes, Africa. Because when your reality if that you are gathered as peoples of multiple indigenous African origins in a foreign land you're forced to cultivate under persecution you don't exactly have the luxury of the autonomous naming nuances you would as the many indigenous drum repertoire you've named from the African continent. This is not to say that many across the community didn't keep the nuance of particularity, but for the purposes discussed in the video, the African Drum is appropriate to speak the purpose of the lecture.
The Devils are operating everywhere HEY!
Look at this African, millenia and ages ago, 6 and 8 PACKS.
Damn, get to the freaking point, already!
There is not only a lack of evidence, this is getting way less of a response than it should. The influence of banning the drum staggers the imagination, once he explains it.
Music
singing
This is crazy and don't make sense... The indigenous (aboriginal) people here already had drums.
Title: "How *BANNING* the African drum gave birth to AMERICAN MUSIC"
Joshua May 😂
That’s true but Africans had their own styles of drums and were used to send messages and code words from plantation to plantation. Some Africans to date still use Drums to send messages.
O
having 1% African in my DNA I find a real spiritual connection with African drums and African-American people. They are my people too.
The human race. Spot on.
People need to get good at spotting TROLLS. TROLL alert.
What the heck is this guy talking about drums were used in rebellions in the Caribbean
Title: "How *BANNING* the African drum gave birth to AMERICAN MUSIC"
He’s not talking about the Caribbean, he’s talking about USA 🇺🇸
Only European music developed without drums.
So South east asians drums is just a copy from africans?
The Scottish played the bagpipes so they couldn't have been banned in the British isles
the British band everything from dancing singing to the Welsh language Irish language and Scottish
wearing of the green .ec ect
Banned in the British Caribbean where Irish and Scots were deported to
Robert Mitchell
As slaves
To Jamaica too
The prohibition against wearing tartan and playing bagpipes were part of the penal laws introduced by the Hanoverian British Government after the failed 1745 uprising in Scotland and the UK and aimed specifically at breaking those Highland clans who had supported the previous Jacobite dynasty in their attempt to regain the thrones of Scotland & England. So it was definitely in Britain but the ban was not introduced in Ireland which was also part of the UK at that time. They did not ban wearing of the green nor the Celtic languages. I'm am from Ireland and went to school in Scotland and all schoolchildren in Scotland were taught this as part of our education curriculum
DaithiKerr68
Good info apart from the UK bit as I doubt it was formed then
The drum is and always have been used for communication. Whether for recreation, war, or religion. Name a culture who didn't have war drums?
Europeans. Outside of small pockets of Eastern Europeans, drums as a whole were not part of European cultures. They didn’t start using the drum until the mid 1800s, and that was based on African use. Drums came from Africa. Over a period of trading with other cultures, those groups included it in their cultures.
@@MSILBB they still had drums before that look up their Nordic cousins. And Without the Germanic tribes they couldn't take Africa
Are those MASSIVE pit stains?
I wondered the same, but I think they are shadows
Steve Howe those are pit stains
Why does it matter?
Who cares
Yeah. So what? He's in the spotlight figuratively and literally. I'd be sweating WAY worse in his place...
A gourd with strings is not a banjo... just like a Lute is not a banjo... humans have been playing stringed instruments for 10+ thousand years
Yea but the banjo is an African instrument modernized by whites by adding more strings and slightly changing the frame style. This is recorded history.
Actually it is; the people who create these instruments give it their name. There are different styles of the banjo in Africa. Some with a flatter base and some with a more round appearance. In America, Africans created instruments that were modeled after their instruments in Africa; the banjo being one of them. It’s still an instrument that didn’t come from you.
interesting subject, annoying presenter.
Good presentation, but he seems very eccentric and effeminate...his mannerisms.
So what if he seems eccentric and effeminate . What has that got to do with anything?
@@MrTopeakeremale you offended by what I said 😆😆😆😎😎 why does that bother you, gfoh.
Jazz = Masterpiece
Hip Hop = Junk
K onliner yo u mean rap . hip hop Isa culture
Hip Hop is jazz human.
@Amen Knowtech I'm not white...
@@konliner9286 you gotta listen to the right stuff
It’s funny how people around the world love our junk. And how our junk music influences the world and pop culture. Hip Hop = masterpiece
The Americas 🤔🤔 you mean the USA. Stop taking about our land like if the US is the america. 😂😂 for someone preaching knowledge you don’t sound to smart when you referred to the US as the Americas.
US literally means "The *United* States Of *America* "
@@vintheguy US =United States in the continent of the america. Like Mexico , Canadá centro america and South America
I am pretty sure if anyone banned that drum it is because it is so intellectually stunting to call that art that it prevents ambitious people from Striving/thriving.
But of course I don't know.
And it was a tool of communication. It encourages cultural pride. A pride in uncivilness/uncultivated minds.
I'm being mean. But I'd tell him to learn an instrument ... Something that was a marketable skills. Instead of beating a diaper.
It spell checked vid to visit. Now that looked rude!: I'm pretty sure if I wanted Visit, it would have at Least Been a 4 Letter wOrd
Lol. Regurgitating the greatest lie ever told. Africans have nothing of significance to do with Amarukhans aka AMERICANS! All so called blacks didnt come off a ship nor brought drums with them which is silly. In fact, less than 100k were "brought" here. Just look up the original emblem of America which is housed in a British museum. Look up the 1828 Websters English dictionary definition on an American. Those two things alone should force questions.
You're the one spreading pseudohistory
@@jaxthewolf4572 lol @ "psuedo". Its either the truth or it isnt. Just because the colonizers fed you a story, dont make it true
@@blackface703
His delivery/presentation is ANNOYING !!!!!
This should be titled "how banning the African drum HELPED give birth to American music". No one is denying the massive contribution of africans/african americans to the history of American music....however...to take 100% credit for it is just absurd.
80% then. Is that better?
LittleGothGirl More like 95%
@@WaxDat8800 And how do you come to that percentage.? The english language, alone, besides all the other influences i listed, is certainly worth more than 5% as far as songwriting, from tin pan alley, blues,country up to modern pop as far as lyric goes.
Its arrogant, misguided and patently absurd to put a percentage on something that contributed simply a part of a large mosaic. Educate yourself. And drop the inferiority complex that needs to diminish others contributions.
Let's be honest; without the input of African-americans the music in America's would be way less fun!
@@nagichampa9866 i totally agree with that...this isnt about diminishing african americans input...its about this trend/tendency to highlight the negative and negate the positive of white culture in the media, academia and the arts.....Da Vinci, van Gogh, Bach, Beethoven, The Beatles and thousands of other great artists were "white" and except for the Beatles NONE of the others i mentioned were influenced in any SIGNIFICANT way by Africa. almost every aspect of modern culture....language, technology,infrastructure,architecture...is the result of the advances of alot of non african people, yet enjoyed...RELIED on... by many from/of african descent...we owe far more to Vedic culture than Africa, hands down!...its time to stop playing the race card,, to enjoy things for what they are instead of boasting about things without merit and diminishing the talents of others. If you noticed, none of the commentators answered any of my questions, because to do so would destroy this fantasy they have concocted. Haribol,.
Boring and shallow lecture no matter what anyone have to tell me here, simply not good enough!