Country in West Africa. With an area of only 11,295 km2, it is the smallest country on the continent.
1. Ethnic groups and musical background.
2. Music of the main ethnic groups.
RODERIC C. KNIGHT
The 2000 population estimate was 1·24 million, of which 42% are Mandinka, 18% Fula (Fulani, Fulbe or Peul), 16% Wolof, 10% Jola (Diola or Dyola) and 9% Serahuli (Soninke), with other groups comprising less than 4%, and non-Gambians 1%. The population is 90% Muslim, 9% Christian, and 1% follow traditional religions. English is the official language.
Most Gambians are agriculturalists, though the Wolof and Mandinka also have a strong mercantile tradition. The Fula, now sedentary, were at one time cattle nomads, and they still keep herds of cows. With the exception of the Jola, all Gambian ethnic groups have some degree of hierarchical social organization, one of the marks of which is that certain skilled crafts, including music, are practised primarily by hereditary professionals. The generic term griot generally refers to specialists in music, praise-oratory and oral history in West Africa, but each ethnic group has an individual term for this profession.
The Mandinka, westernmost branch of the widespread Mande people, have a variety of music genres, but the dominant one is jaliyaa, which refers to the music and other skilled activities of the jali (pl. jalolu), the Mandinka professional. The principal surnames by which the jalolu are identified are Kuyateh, Jobarteh, Suso and Saho. In the past, jalolu served as court musicians, genealogists, oral historians and even diplomats for leaders at all levels, from the 13th-century emperor of Mali to 19th-century kings and district chiefs. They usually enjoyed permanent patronage. Endogamous marriages (to other jalolu) assured that knowledge of the profession remained within the families. As the sole providers of their services, jalolu enjoyed a privileged position in Mandinka society, one that gave them power to criticize as well as to praise, but also caused them to be regarded almost as cultural outsiders.
Today marriages between jali and non-jali are far more common, and the music is taught in schools. Musicians perform in hotels, on the radio and with the national ensemble, in addition to continuing with traditional jaliyaa. In spite of these democratizing trends, traditional jaliyaa is still the standard for entertainment and commemoration at events such as child-namings, weddings and religious celebrations. Although permanent patronage is now rare, today's politicians, businessmen and religious leaders still regard jaliyaa as the music for their social class.
A male jali typically learns to sing and to play one of three melodic instruments, according to his particular family tradition. The instruments are the Kora, a 21-string bridge harp which can be tuned to several heptatonic scales, the konting or nkoni, a skin-faced, slender oval lute with five strings, and the Balo or balafon, a gourd-resonated frame xylophone with 17–21 keys tuned to an equiheptatonic scale. In The Gambia, the kora is the most widespread of these instruments. Although the jali women (jali musolu) do not play melodic instruments, they are highly trained and excel as singers, and play the neo or karinya, a tubular iron bell struck with an iron rod (see fig.1).
A fourth melodic instrument, the Bolonor bolombato, a large arched harp (a variety referred to as a spike harp) with four heavy rawhide strings (fig.2), is played not by the jali but by members of the Kamara family. The bolon has a solo repertory of its own, distinct from the jali repertory, but it is also used today to provide an improvised bass line in ensembles made up of the jali instruments.
There is one other type of Mandinka griot known as the fina, also with the surname Kamara, but with a different role. The fina plays no instrument, but specializes in singing religious praise from the Qur'an called hadiso. He numbers the jali among his patrons, thus defining his social status as below that of the jali.
Jaliyaa encompasses praise, historical narrative and musical performance. The musical component of jaliyaa consists of a repertory of praise-songs that celebrates the achievements of past heroes and contemporary figures. The basic vocal line (donkilo) is supported by an ostinato that kora players call the kumbengo. A typical kumbengo consists of a short, paired phrase, polyphonic in texture with enough melodic difference between the half-phrases to suggest harmonic movement. Hemiola, interlocking rhythms and offset accents create rhythmic interest. The basic donkilo line is used mainly as a choral refrain, and the bulk of a song consists of long recitative-like extemporizations called sataro that incorporate proverbs, philosophical commentary, and formal and spontaneous praise for various individuals present at a performance.
An ideal performing ensemble consists of one or more instruments of one kind (although mixed ensembles are increasingly common today), several singers and one or two vocal soloists. Solo instrumental playing is also a part of the tradition, but without a distinct repertory: skilled performers develop song accompaniments into virtuoso pieces by adding variations and improvised passages called birimintingo.
The general word for drum, tantango, encompasses two forms occasionally used in jaliyaa: the dundungo, a cylindrical drum slung from the shoulder, and the tama, a small hourglass drum held high under the arm and squeezed to change pitch.
The principal drums of the Gambian Mandinka are the kutiro drums. They are not played as part of jaliyaa but form a separate, non-hereditary tradition. The ensemble consists of three drums: the kutiriba and kutirindingo, large and small single-head conical drums, and the sabaro, a long, slender conical drum played by the leader of the group. All are played with an open left hand and a pencil-sized stick in the right. Ex.1 presents a typical drum ostinato played on the two kutiro drums, over which the sabaro player improvises and gives signals to control the dance.
Kutiro drumming is popular entertainment in contrast to the more courtly jaliyaa. It animates youth initiation festivities, weddings, rice planting and other farm work (fig.3), wrestling matches, the Kankurang masked dance and, most commonly, the recreational dances known as lenjengo and seruba. Each of these events is easily recognized by its distinctive drum rhythm. Lenjengo is a vigorous dance with sequential soloists in which women (and occasionally men) form a circle around the drummers. One or two enter the circle at a time, bend deeply at the waist and swing their arms to the back and then upwards as they stamp their feet. Those not dancing clap their hands in interlocking rhythmic patterns. Seruba follows after some time with a more relaxed beat. The emphasis in seruba is on songs extemporized by a male singer (the fourth member of the drum troupe). Individuals often request that songs be made up about their friends who are present.
In former times, music associated with hunting societies was another common Mandinka genre, but today one rarely hears the dana jali (hunter's musician) or his instrument, the simbingo, a small, six string spike harp (fig.4). The dana jali formerly sang narrative songs about animals and the hunt, and danced to mime the hunt, while villagers joined in with singing and hand clapping. Although not a jali per se, the dana jali relied on the patronage of his fellow hunters and, as such, may represent a kind of jali, for hunters and warriors (often one and the same) were once the equivalent of royalty in Mande society.
In the 1990s Mandinka jaliyaa, especially kora jaliyaa, emerged as one of the most familiar West African sounds in the international world of Afro-Pop music.
The Fula are spread across the savanna from Senegal to Cameroon (see also FulBe music). There are three types of Fula griot: the maabo, bammbaa'do and the gawlo. The first two play the hoddu, a three-string plucked lute similar to the Mandinka konting, but larger, or the nyaanyooru (see Goge), a monochord bowed lute with horsehair strung on both the instrument and the bow. The maabo and bammbaa’do are court musicians with a role and status similar to the Mandinka jali. The awlu'be (pl. of gawlo) play more often in groups and for a general audience rather than select patrons although they regard Mandinka jalolu as their patrons and may perform for them in expectation of being paid.
The awlu'be play the serndu, a transverse flute, the horde, a large half calabash held against the chest and beaten with palms and rings on fingers, the laala, a pair of L-shaped stick-rattles, each a sistrum with discs of calabash loosely skewered on one arm (fig.5), and an hourglass drum. Some typical horde and laala rhythms are shown in ex.2. The horde player is usually an acrobat as well and wears a skirt of wide woven bands to accentuate his movements.
Songs consist of either long, rapid declamatory phrases sung by a soloist, with drone-like responses offered by one of the accompanists, or shorter strophic phrases sung by a soloist and repeated by a second soloist or a chorus. Instruments parallel the voices in heterophony.
The Gambian Wolof are primarily merchants and farmers who live in or near Banjul, the capital, and on the north bank of the Gambia river. Among the Wolof, the professional musician is known as gewel. As with the Mandinka, the gewel plays a melodic instrument according to his family tradition. The most common instruments are the xalam, a five-string plucked lute similar to the Mandinka konting, and the riti, a bowed monochord lute less common in The Gambia than the xalam (see Goge). The xalam and the konting share repertories to some extent. Like the jali and the Fula griots, the gewel plays these instruments alone or to accompany singing or narration. The song style and content are similar to jaliyaa.
The Wolof play several types of drum. Some are played by the gewel, others by non-professionals. The tabala, a deep kettle drum, is kept in the mosque and used for songs praising Allah. The dance drum ensemble called sabar employs five to seven drums, all played with the stick-and-hand technique. Open-end, slightly conical drums called nder and mbung mbung, similar to the Mandinka sabaro, provide solo and accompanying parts in the higher register, while the closed-end barrel drums gorong and lambe provide the lower register of the ensemble. To these is sometimes added the tama, the same hourglass drum played by the Mandinka. Sabar drumming is played for a variety of functions but not for funerals or Muslim holy days, when only xalam playing is allowed. Wolof drumming is intensely energetic and characterized by complex polyrhythmic combinations. The dance style is similar to the Mandinka, with sequential soloists in the dance circle, but the movements are more sexually suggestive. In one dance, for example, women gently tug at the opening of their wrap-around skirts as they dance towards the drummers.
The Jola live mostly on the south bank of the Gambia river and in the Casamance region of Senegal. They are farmers and have no specialized trades. They form work parties to cultivate rice and groundnuts, and sing to synchronize their work. A distinctive feature of Jola singing, whether for farming, wrestling matches, dances or funerals, is a wordless chorus on the syllables ‘wo-eh’. The undulating melodic line sometimes breaks into two-part harmony (ex.3). A soloist extemporizes or sings traditional words between the choruses and also adds further passages of vocalization.
In some areas, the simbing, a spike harp larger than the Mandinka simbingo and held sideways, is played to accompany groups of men singing.
The Bugaar or Bukarabo is a celebratory dance in which both men and women dance, stamping or jumping in a pattern resembling the Lenjengo dance, but with arms outstretched. A single drummer plays three tall single-skin drums called bugaar tuned to different pitches. The men sing and the women clap, at first together and then in interlocking patterns when the dancing starts (ex.4). The Futamp, a circumcision festival, is held every 15–20 years and is an occasion for other songs and dances and for the appearance of the kumpo masked dancer. The kumpo also appears frequently today on other occasions. It has no face but looks instead like a haystack with a long pole sticking out the top. As the dancer moves about, he occasionally plants the tip of the pole in the ground, and, with his feet still on the ground, he whirls around the pole's axis in an impressive flurry of grass streamers. A set of Mandinka kutiro drums, several iron bells on which interlocking rhythms are played, and elit, a pair of long end-blown whistles, accompany this dance.
For further bibliography see Senegal; Guinea; Mali; Balo; and Kora.
C.A. Moloney: ‘On the Melodies of the Volof, Mandingo, Ewe, Yoruba and Hausa People of West Africa’, Journal of the Manchester Geographical Society, v (1889), 277–98
D.P. Gamble: The Wolof of Senegambia (London, 1957)
L.-V. Thomas: ‘Les Diola’, Mémoires de l'Institut français d'Afrique noire, lv (1958–9), 1–821
G. Rouget: ‘Sur les xylophones equiheptaphonique des Malinké’, RdM, lv (1969), 47–77
R.C. Knight: Mandinka Jaliya: Professional Music of the Gambia (diss., UCLA, 1973)
R.C. Knight: ‘Mandinka Drumming’, African Arts, vii/4 (1974), 24–35
S. Darbo: A Griot's Self-Portrait: the Origins and Role of the Griot in Mandinka Society as seen from Stories told by Gambian Griots (Banjul, 1976)
J.T. Irvine and J.D. Sapir: ‘Musical Style and Social Change among the Kujamaat Diola’, EthM, xx (1976), 67–86
I. Leymarie: The Role and Function of the Griots among the Wolof of Senegal (diss., Columbia U., 1978)
M.T. Coolen: Xalamkats: The Xalam Tradition of the Senegambia (diss., U. of Washington, 1979)
M. Schaffer and C. Cooper: Mandinko: the Ethnography of a West African Holy Land (Prospect Heights, IL, 1980)
L. Duran: ‘A Preliminary Study of the Wolof Xalam, with a List of Recordings at the BIRS’, Recorded Sound, no.79 (1981), 29–50
L. Duran: ‘Theme and Variation in Kora Music: a Preliminary Study of “Tutu Jara” as Performed by Amadu Bansang Jobate’, Music and Tradition: Essays on Asian and Other Musics Presented to Laurence Picken (Cambridge, 1981), 181–96
R. Knight: ‘Music in Africa: the Manding Contexts’, Performance Practice: Ethnomusicological Perspectives (Westport, CT, 1984), 53–90
R. Knight: ‘The Style of Mandinka Music: a Study in Extracting Theory from Practice’, Selected Reports, v (1984), 3–66
S. Jatta: ‘Born Musicians: Traditional Music from The Gambia’, Repercussions: a Celebration of African-American Music (London, 1985), 14–29
G. Innes and B. Sidibe, eds. and trans.: Hunters and Crocodiles: Narratives of a Hunter's Bard: Recorded in Mandinka during a Performance by Bakari Kamara (Sandgate, Kent, 1990)
R. Knight: ‘Music out of Africa: Mande Jaliya in Paris’, World of Music, xxxiii/1 (1991), 52–69
E. Charry: Musical Thought, History, and Practice among the Mande of West Africa (diss., Princeton U., 1993)
P.A. Ebron: Negotiating the Meaning of Africa: Mandinka Praisesingers in Transnational Contexts (diss., U. of Massachusetts, 1993)
F.M. Suso and others: Jali Kunda: Griots of West Africa and Beyond (Roslyn, NY, 1996) [incl. disc Ellipsis Arts CD3510]
Music of the Diola-Fogny of Casamance, Senegal, Folkways F–E4323 (1965)
The Griots, Folkways FE 4178 (1975)
African Flutes [Fula and Serrehule], Folkways F–4230 (1978)
Mamadou Ly: Mandinka Drum Master, Village Pulse VP 1001 (1992)
Sabar Wolof: Dance Drumming of Senegal; Village Pulse VP 1003 (1992)