Five drums, one groove. Two djembes trade short phrases, three bass drums called dununs build a melody underneath, and a bell on every dunun holds it all together. This page takes the Malinké drum ensemble apart so you can hear every voice, then puts it back together in four rhythms.
The Malinké, also called Maninka, are one of the peoples of the Mande world of West Africa. In Guinea, where the rhythms on this page come from, a rhythm is played for its occasion: a harvest, an initiation, a dance, a celebration. In the countryside, some rhythms are never played outside their occasion.
The ensemble here is the common one: two djembes playing accompaniment parts and three dununs, each with its bell. In a real circle a lead djembe solos on top and talks to the dancers. We leave the soloist out and give you the ground the soloist stands on.
So listen from the bottom up. Find the big dundunba first, then the bells, then let the djembes lock in on top.
Every master, village and teacher plays these rhythms a little differently. That is the tradition working, not a mistake. The parts here follow the versions of Mamady Keïta: one good way in, not the only one.
Meet the drums
Hear each drum on its own first. The djembe card plays its three sounds; each dunun card plays an open stroke, a closed stroke and the bell.
Djembe
A goblet-shaped drum carved from one piece of wood, with a goatskin head, played with bare hands.
Three sounds make its whole language: the bass in the center, the tone at the edge, and the slap, the sharp crack a good hand pulls from the edge too. In the ensemble two djembes play interlocking accompaniment parts, and a third, the lead, is free to solo.
Kenkeni
The smallest dunun and the highest voice, also called kensedeni.
It keeps the pulse: a short, steady figure the rest of the ensemble leans on.
Sangban
The middle dunun.
Often the busiest of the three, and the one with the most variations. It answers the dundunba and fills the space between its notes, often with closed strokes.
Dundunba
The biggest dunun and the deepest voice, also written dununba. Ba means big in Malinké.
It carries the melody of the rhythm. In many rhythms its phrase is the part that tells you which rhythm you are hearing.
Every dunun player holds a stick in one hand for the drum and strikes the bell with the other. An open stroke lets the head ring; a closed stroke leaves the stick on the head, so the note stops short. On the staves, the bell is the x above the line and a closed stroke carries a +. Traditionally each dunun has its own player. In ballet style, one drummer plays all three, standing up.
Four rhythms, one ensemble
Start with Kuku. Solo the dundunba and hear its phrase stretch over two bars. Add the sangban, then the kenkeni. Bring the djembes in last. Then switch rhythms: the drums stay the same, and everything changes.
Kuku and Kassa are binary: every beat splits in four. Soli and Soko are ternary, written in 12/8: every beat splits in three, and the groove rolls instead of marching.
Each rhythm is also written out, the way djembe players share rhythms in a message: one line per drum, one group per beat. Djembe: B bass, T tone, S slap. Dununs: O open stroke with the bell, C closed stroke with the bell, x the bell alone. A dash is a rest.
Kuku
- People
- Manian, who speak a Malinké dialect
- Region
- Forest Guinea and Côte d'Ivoire
- Occasion
- Festivals and full-moon dances
- Feel
- Binary, 4/4
Kuku began as the dance of the women coming back from fishing, who danced with their nets. It was first played on djembes alone, one of them tuned low, and the dununs came later, which is why masters play different dunun parts for it. Today it is heard at every kind of celebration: fast in Beyla, slow in Odienné.
Djembe 1 B-TT --S- B-TT --S- Djembe 2 TT-S TTS- TT-S TTS- Kenkeni OO-- OO-- OO-- OO-- Sangban O-xC -xO- O-xC -xO- Dundunba x-xO -xx- x-x- O-O- O-xO -xx- x-x- x-x-
Kassa
- People
- Malinké
- Region
- Northeast Guinea
- Occasion
- Work in the fields and the harvest
- Feel
- Binary, 4/4
Kassa means granary. It is the farmers' rhythm: drummers play for the men working the fields, far from the village and sometimes for a whole week, while girls come along to sing. When the harvest is in, everyone celebrates at a party called Kassalodon.
Djembe 1 TTSS --SS TTSS B-SS Djembe 2 S--S S-TT S-BS S-TT Kenkeni OO-C -xC- OO-C -xC- Sangban C-xO -xC- C-xO -xC- Dundunba O-OO -xx- x-OO -OO-
Soli
- People
- Malinké
- Region
- All over Guinea
- Occasion
- Initiation
- Feel
- Ternary, 12/8 (the fast Soli)
Soli accompanies initiation, the passage from childhood to adulthood. It starts months before the ceremony, is heard every day in the last week and all through the last night. In the countryside nobody plays Soli outside that moment. There is a slow Soli too, written in 4/4; this is the fast one.
Djembe 1 S-T S-- S-T S-- Djembe 2 S-- STT S-- STT Kenkeni -xx -OO -xx -OO Sangban O-x -C- C-x O-x Dundunba O-O x-x x-O O-O
Soko
- People
- Malinké
- Region
- The Faranah region, Guinea
- Occasion
- The weeks before initiation
- Feel
- Ternary, 12/8, a two-bar cycle
Before an initiation, the children about to go through it travel from village to village to tell their relatives the date. Soko is played for them in every village they reach, and Soli is played when they come home. Its sangban and dundunba run over two bars, which gives the groove its long, rolling shape.
Djembe 1 S-T S-- S-T S-- Djembe 2 S-S STT S-S STT Kenkeni Cx- OO- Cx- OO- Sangban Cx- Cx- OO- OO- Cx- Cx- Cx- OO- Dundunba O-x x-O O-O O-O O-x x-x x-O O-O
Every drum on this page is in Drum Notes. Write a part out, loop it with the rest of the ensemble, and play along.
Write a rhythm in Drum NotesEvery master, village and teacher plays these rhythms a little differently. That is the tradition working, not a mistake. The parts here follow the versions of Mamady Keïta: one good way in, not the only one.
Where it comes from
The djembe and the dununs come from the Mande world, the lands of the old Mali Empire, which today spread across Guinea, Mali and their neighbors. Malinké drumming grew up in villages, where master drummers, the djembefolas, learned the rhythms by ear, each one tied to its occasion.
In 1952 the Guinean choreographer Fodéba Keïta founded Les Ballets Africains in Paris. After Guinea's independence in 1958 it became the national ensemble, and national ballets took village rhythms onto stages around the world, arranged for the theater. Ballet-style dunun playing, one drummer on all three drums, is named after these companies.
Two drummers from that world became teachers to the planet. Famoudou Konaté, born in 1940 in the Hamana region, was lead soloist of Les Ballets Africains from 1959 to 1985 and created many of the arrangements groups play today. Mamady Keïta, born in 1950 in Balandougou, joined the Ballet Djoliba at 14 and founded the Tam Tam Mandingue school; he died in 2021. Their books, recordings and students carried these rhythms far beyond Guinea.
These rhythms still belong to real occasions in Guinea. Learning them is a way into that world: find a teacher if you can, play in a group, and listen before you play.
Play it yourself
You do not need five drums to start. You need one djembe part and a steady pulse.
- New to the djembe? Get the bass, tone and slap under your hands with our essential djembe patterns, then come back for the ensemble parts.
- Set the free online metronome slow and play one djembe part until it sits on the click without thinking.
- Then sing a dunun part while you play. It is the quickest way to feel how the parts lock together.
- Curious about other traditions? The samba guide takes a bateria apart the same way.
More rhythms to play
Ready for more? This Drum Notes folder, picked by our team, holds seven versions of Mendiani, plus Maane, Mansa Kassa and a few more, ready to play along in the app.
Frequently asked questions
What is Malinké drumming?
The drum music of the Malinké people of West Africa, played by an ensemble of djembes and three dunun bass drums. Each rhythm belongs to an occasion, such as a harvest, an initiation or a celebration, and has its own djembe and dunun parts.
What are the three dunun drums?
The kenkeni, the smallest and highest, which keeps the pulse; the sangban, the middle drum; and the dundunba, the biggest and lowest, which carries the melody of the rhythm. Each is played with a stick, and each has a bell its player strikes with the other hand.
What is the difference between a djembe and a dunun?
The djembe is a goblet-shaped drum played with bare hands, with three main sounds: bass, tone and slap. A dunun is a cylindrical bass drum with a head at each end, played with a stick, usually with a bell on it. In the ensemble the dununs are the foundation and the djembes play on top.
Is Soli in 12/8 or 4/4?
The fast Soli, the one most people mean, is ternary and written in 12/8: every beat splits in three. There is also a slow Soli, written in 4/4.
What does Kassa mean?
Granary. Kassa is the Malinké farmers' rhythm, played while the men work the fields and at the harvest.
How do you play Kuku with dununs?
Kuku was first played on djembes alone, so its dunun parts came later and masters play different versions. The version on this page, Mamady Keïta's, has a dundunba phrase two bars long, a sangban with closed strokes and a kenkeni that plays two quick strokes on every beat. Press play and solo each drum to learn it part by part.
Do I need all five drums to play these rhythms?
No. Start with one djembe part and a metronome. Every part is written out on this page, and every drum is in Drum Notes, so you can write the rest of the ensemble and play along with it.
Sources
The parts on this page follow Mamady Keïta's versions in "Mamady Keïta: A Life for the Djembé, Traditional Rhythms of the Malinké" by Uschi Billmeier (Arun), cross-checked with Paul Nas's WAP pages and the djembefola.com community's comparisons of books and recordings. The notation is ours, and so is the sound: the samples are the djembe and dunun sounds of Drum Notes.
