My name is Farah Imaliangah. I am actually an African percussionist that plays various instruments from Africa. But today I have two specific instruments that I want to introduce you to. But before we do that, let's talk about Africa. Africa is not really a country, it's a continent. And being a continent, it has over 50 different countries in it. And in those 50 different countries, it has many, many different cultures. So these drums really only represent at most 10% of the entire population of Africa in terms of the type instruments that they play. Today I only have two instruments for you though. So just to know, this instrument in front of you here and the instrument that I'm sitting on. First let me just quickly introduce you to this instrument which is called the Kahon. The Kahon is an instrument that's made out of a box and played a lot in Cuba and also played in Peru. But it actually originates in West Africa and it's called the Seco drum and played here with your hands. Okay, so the other drum that I'm going to talk to you a lot about is called the Jim Bay. Now the Jim Bay is spelled DJ-EMBE. This drum is a drum that's played in West Africa. The history of the Jim Bay comes from the Mali Empire, which was a huge empire, somewhere between 800 and 1200 AD. That's about halfway between the birth of Christ and where we are today. The Jim Bay is a drum that was played for the King of Mali. And it became a very popular drum because everywhere he went, whether it was in a battle or was for celebration, he would use the Jim Bay drum. Why would he use the Jim Bay drum? Well, the Jim Bay drum is a very loud drum. So this drum was used as a form of communication that would be used from mountain top to mountain top to tell people about the King was coming. In fact, there's a rhythm that actually talks about the King is coming. It goes like this. And the rhythm is called Aniso Kama. It means the King is coming. So this drum was a communication device. What are the parts of the Jim Bay drum? Well, the Jim Bay drum is made out of four different parts. The top part is made out of goat skin. Then to hold the goat skin down of these metal rings, one, two, and three. Connecting the metal rings is rope or string. And then the main part and most important part, of course, is the wood. Now, the wood is very important because it represents what a lot of Africans consider is the family tree, which connects the youth, the young people, which are the fruits and the leaves, to the family, which is the branches and the tree, to the ancestors, the people that have passed on, which is the bottom of the tree. So the roots of the tree is a very important part of the African culture and the Jim Bay drum. So now you guys have all four different parts of the Jim Bay drum. Go skin, rings, strings, and wood. I guess I'll talk a little bit about the three sounds that come out of the Jim Bay drum. First sound is bass, which is in the middle. Second sound is the tone, which is on the side. And the highest sound is slap, which is done with your fingertips. bass, tone, slap, bass, tone, slap. So as you can see, drums are very complicated and the Jim Bay has three main sounds that are played on it. But there's a lot of different sounds that you can get out of this drum if you're a professional drummer. So now you have a basic idea of what the Jim Bay is all about. Maybe we can continue learning a little bit more.