It’s disturbingly easy these days to make a hit record in Africa that sounds like it could have been made anywhere else. A laptop, a few “Afrobeats” loops, and a sprinkle of pidgin can now simulate what once took an entire village. But as African pop continues to be relevant on global charts, one question lingers louder than the bass: where did the drum go?
Not the digitized snare or the recycled 808, the real drum. The talking drum that speaks emotion. The shekere that shakes in rhythm with ancestral memory. The balafon that hums wisdom in wooden tones. Somewhere between exporting our sound and expanding our reach, we exiled our instruments, and with them, a part of our soul.
Every African instrument carries memory. The agogo isn’t just a percussion tool; it’s a coded call from Yoruba temples. The mbira is not merely a thumb piano; it’s a spiritual bridge in Zimbabwean cosmology. The djembe doesn’t just mark rhythm, it translates emotion into collective feeling. These are not ornaments of tradition; they are living archives of our philosophy, language, and emotion.
As a musician who has felt the hum of a kalimba vibrate through my palms and the resonance of a slit drum echo in my chest, I know the difference between sound and soul. Our traditional instruments are not relics; they are repositories of function and meaning. The talking drum could mimic human speech long before microphones existed. The flute could summon rainfall. The drum circle could restore peace without a single word. These instruments did more than entertain; they mediated life.
Now imagine the magic when we reintroduce that depth into modern production. Picture Burna Boy’s “City Boys” with a subtle agidigbo groove. Imagine Asake’s chants reinforced by live bata drums instead of synthetic 808s. Envision Amaarae’s ethereal tone floating on a kora progression. This isn’t just sonic nostalgia, it’s cultural restoration. The return of our instruments to the studio is a return of our voice to the conversation.
African pop already carries the world’s rhythm, but too often it does so with borrowed tools. It’s time for the udu, the ngoni, and the hosho to reclaim their rightful space in our soundscape, not as decorative accessories but as creative foundations. This isn’t a rejection of technology; it’s a reclamation of authorship. Just as hip-hop producers flipped soul samples into revolutions, African producers can sample and evolve their own heritage into the next global sound.
An instrument behind museum glass is history. An instrument in the studio is powerful. Every time a balafon riff enters a trap beat or a shekere shakes through amapiano, Africa retells its story, not as a memory, but as motion.
The world is already listening to Africa. But Africa must now listen to itself again. The conscious return of African instruments to the studio is not a regression to “roots”; it’s a recalibration of relevance.
Because our sound is not just rhythm — it’s remembrance.
And when we protect that sound, we preserve our soul.
