Ancient Text Messages: Bata Drums in a Changing World
#724\nProduced by Ned Sublette\nair date 2/11/2016\n\nIn Africa, drums don't only play rhythms, they send messages. \u201cAncient Text Messages: Bat\xe1 Drums in a Changing World\u201d explores an endangered tradition of drum speech in Nigeria, and how that tradition changed and thrived in Cuba, where large numbers of enslaved Yoruba arrived in the 19th century. Producer Ned Sublette speaks with ethnomusicologist Amanda Villepastour, language technician Tunde Adegbola, and drummer Kenneth Schweitzer about how language and music overlap.