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Kakilambé

The Kakilambé is one of the more well known examples of polyrhythmic music around. Not only combines it 2 and 3 beat patterns in differentinstruments, it also combines 2 and 3 beat patterns in one instrument and it uses off-beats within those patterns too!

The Kakilambé is a mask dance of the Baga people. The priest interprets the messages of the mask for the people, about fertility, harvest and sacrifices. The Kakilambé is the terrifying God of Water, Rain, Wind and Fire who used to appear once every seven years from the forest. These days it is celebrated yearly.

Basic pattern
The basic pattern of the Kakilambé is a first part with 3 notes, resembling a waltz, and a second part with 2 slower notes. The first of the slower notes has an offbeat in it. If you take the sentence "This is the Kaki - Lam - bé" and speak it rhythmically, you have the basic pattern:

Note: If you see things like 4b.tt4..s. then you must install the Yankadi font in order to see the music!
 

So there is no question of the beat being anywhere specific, of it having a 3-beat 3/4 rhythm or a 2-beat rhythm. This changes between bars, between parts, between instruments. Follow the text! Which is, by the way, a good idea for many rhythms - find a small piece of text that contains the rhythm, in order to remember it. Many of the rhythmic phrases havetraditional african texts to them!

Polyrhythmic music means that you become familiar with different rhythms, different "speeds", being contained within one piece of music atthe same time. Depending on which instrument you listen to, you will hear a slower or faster rhythm. If you try to clap a 3/4 beat, like the first half, or a 6/8 beat, like the second half, and keep that up throughout the whole rhythm, you will quickly get confused. Instead, go with the flow, accept that things change and that the rhythm changes within itself too.

Here are the parts of the Kakilambé as I have learned them from Eva Leerdam, playing the doundounba and sangban with one bell.
 

The djembe part can be played by playing all the odd pulses (1, 3, 5) with the right hand, or you can strictly alternate right and left hand between played notes, so the first beat of each bar is on the right. Try them both! It will teach you how handing links with beat, and how easy or hard it is to play "loose" or slightly off the exact beat, if you one type of handing or another. And it will teach you that some ways of playingare far "simpler" to do than others.
 

Only handing 2 allows you to move some notes in time, resulting in an almost 4/4 rhythm:
 

Here are the parts as given by Mamady Keita. Considerable more emphasis is placed on the 1st and 4th pulse and the rhythm feels like a much lighter two-step rhythm. This is a Malinke-style version from the "Ballet Djoliba"

A teaching aid to learn to play Djembe 1 with an emphasis on the tone (in order to keep the two-step rhythm going) is to visualise a forest edge some 100 yards away, and to hear the slap coming back to you as an echo of your tone.
It also helps to play the bass and tone with the right hand, keeping an even movement, and to intersect the slap with left.

Full rhythm

This rhythm can be played fast or slow but is has a tendency to start dragging during the first half, it is a challenge to keep it light! The general trick to keep rhythms light and airy is to de-emphasise or even remove the first beat, the heavy beat. You can try to leave out the very first doundounba beat (the first of the three) and experience what difference that makes to the whole rhythm.

And finally the doundoun melody for djembe. You can experiment in the first bar with leaving out the tone, just play 3 basses, or leaving out the middle bass, but it is nice to play it completely if possible. I create these doundoun melodies for djembe to familiarise the students with the main rhythm melody as contained in the combined doundoun parts, and to prepare them for playing the doundoun parts. Also, such melodies are often more interesting and easier to play than the accompanying djembe parts.

More about the Kakilambe:
BAGATAI or the Land of the BAGAS

Nowadays Kakilambe the terrible god of the Bagas is no more than a memory that makes the memory of the elders shake. But for many centuries he ruled life of the Bagatai, because he was the Master of the Waters, the Rain, the Wind and the Fire.

Every seven years, announced by the thunder and the calls of the priests of the great fetish, he came out of the holy forest and appeared to the terrified people and, through the voice of the priest, he spoke to the assembled villagers.

At first he would manifest his anger against all those whose behaviour had been against the morals and the virtues, whilst he readies himself. The people would prostrate themselves in repentance en beg his blessing en swear their fidelity.

Kailambè would then be reassured to see that he still remained the master of the children of the Land of the Bagas, just like he had been the master of the fathers of their fathers. Kakilambè would grow and swell with joy and predict seven years of good luck and prosperity. "For seven years the Earth shall prosper and the women shall be fertile" Kakilambè says. After that, escorted by songs en dances of joy and gratitude, he would disappear for another seven years.

But whether the Earth prospers and the women are fertile, depends primarily on the power of the man... and on the virile power of the Sengbes (Djembés / sacred drums). So the men dance their power, their virility, their self-confidence, and their determination to uphold the old ways and traditions.

And like a first coming true of the predelictions of Kakilambè, suddenly the goddess of fertility arrives: Nimba with the enormous breasts. The men cry with joy, the women sing, and the young couples who are engaged to be married bring offerings.

O Nimba! The belly that bears no fruit
Is like the ashes in the wind of the desert
Like the leaf in the fire of the savanne!
O Nimba! Goddess of fertility
O Nimba! You who make plants spring forth from the dust
Here are my breast may they be like yours
Here is my belly that it may carry the children of the Bagatai!

And in a vibrant frenzy, in total extasy, the men and women of the Bagatai, join together, knowing that they are under the protection of the Gods.

Thanks to Max van Pelt who made this translation of this page .

Mamady Keita remembers
Traditional ethnic group: Baga, West Guinea, Boke region

A priest of Kakilambé functions as the mask's interpreter, because the mask does not directly speak to the people. It is a big day when the mask appears. Everybody comes to listen. Slowly the mask emerges from the forest, along with its priests. The people have gathered and are waiting. When all the people bow, the mask grows to a height of five meters! Ropes are attached to the mask, one for each individual family of the village, and the other end of each rope is held by a member of each family.

When the rhythm gets fast, the priests and some of the older men dance round the mask. The mask comunicates its predictions to a priest, who then gives the musicians a sign. Then they play a break and the rhythm is played slower and softer. Meanwhile, he gives the people the information that was given to him by the mask; for instance, whether there will be a drought, or a flood, whether the rice harvest will be good and so on. He also will tell whether the children will be in good health, whether the men will behave well, and finally, he tells the people the sacrifices that each one must make.

From: Mamady Keita: A life for the Djembe.

Note: It is interesting to note how an innocuous description like "whether the men will behave well" gets a completely different meaning in the light of the first description, "to uphold the traditional ways", than it would otherwise have in the west. To me this is an indication about how careful we must be to interpret descriptions in the context our own westerrn assumptions of what is "normal".