We went and saw this group on Saturday night Thione Diop is a Senegal West African drummer he is very well known in Seattle as a Master Drummer. He goes to all the festivals and he will walk around and just start drumming. Immediately people start gathering his drumming is that good. There is a gulf between the drum circles and the professional drummers you can hear it. And when Thione starts playing no matter how many other drummers are playing you are drawn to his sound. Thione’s sound is so clean, sharp, and just perfectly complex. I have seen this guy for years so I knew he could play and is one of the best West African drummers on the West Coast. I knew that he was originally from Senegal and that his family had a long history of being drummers and that his family was highly regarded fro it’s talent passed down through generations. Think about that for a second how good do you think you would be if all your life you were brought up around an instrument if all you life you had lived in a family who could trace their musical tradition back hundreds of years?
Thione Diop is just awesome you watch him and it seems so easy. But once you start trying it you realize just how hard and how good he is. Him playing solo is something that if you like the Djembe, you do not want to miss.
So when I heard he was going to be playing with a band I had to see it. And It was glorious the band Yeke Yeke is made of several kinds of drums but also a table thing with wooden strips that you hit with mallets. All together they were a great show with beats you have to hear to believe. I can’t ever remember hearing a more accomplished drum group. The were just that good I mean really amazing talent the crowd went wild with clapping and dancing. I would of gone to the festival just to see them. All of the artists were just so accomplished and so talented and dedicated. During the show people would come up and dance some of them planned others just spontaneous. One was a black lady dressed in red and she just was cool to watch so fluid and full of her own power like the embodiment of the Mother Goddess. She personified that aspect for me colored in red to show the life blood of birth with the confidence of one who has conquered motherhood and love. One who is sure of her power in life and death she was graceful and full of life. The other was a younger black woman with horse hair tied to her ankles and wrists. She was like the fire of the huntress and the Maiden when she danced you could almost see the fire coming off of her. She was power of a different sort more fierce ready to prove herself and prepared to conquer. Completely untamed and full of her own power nay even in the midst of an orgasm with her power. She was sleek and sexy and belonged to no man independence and youth were her traits. When they came up Thione would go to them and play right at them it was so primal and real. It was like looking back in time at how life had always been there is a connection between a drummer and a dancer like that kind of like the connection between a High Priest and High Priestess when they are drawing down. Something sacred and powerful full of the magic of the earth, sky, fire, and air. It was a performance that taught me that the world is full of magic and that really the old traditions are all around us.

Namaste