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Jenbe
(one-skin drum)
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Yanfolila (Ethnic group: Peul)
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Wood, industrial thread, iron
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Height: 52,4 cm
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National Museum of Mali, Mali
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The jenbe is a percussion instrument named after its inventor. Its long shape resembles that of a mortar and its upper side is covered with goatskin fixed to the wood with tacks. Since its initial creation up to the present, its form and the materials used to make it have changed considerably. In former times, at every ceremony at which the jenbe was played, a fire was lit to be used by the player to stretch the skin of his instrument when its sound became too low. Nowadays this practice no longer exists.
My father plays the xylophone. In my case, it is because of my curiosity that I became a jenbe player. When I was six years old, I started making jenbes using old tomato cans and the skin of a fish we call "dodo". Some of the song styles associated with the jenbe are the "manda", "dansa", "soli", and "sokoninkun".
Instrument made by Sekou Konaté in 1996.
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