The bàtá drumming, singing and dancing tradition of the Yorùbá has been described as one of the most prominent markers of pan-Yorùbá culture. Bàtá drummers’ skills are closely associated with the old Yorùbá religion of Òrìṣà worship. In religious rites bàtá drummers recite the biographies and histories of the Òrìṣà and direct prayers to them.
According to Nigerian musicologist Ademola Adegbite, each of the more than one thousand Òrìṣàs has her or his specific rhythm, praise songs and dances. These repertoires are practiced and preserved in families who specialise in the art of bàtá music. Within such families, drumming skills are passed on to male descendants, while females learn the songs and dances of the different Òrìṣàs.
Lamidi Ayankunle (1949 – 2018) was a bàtá drummer from Ẹ̀rin-Ọ̀sun in South Western Nigeria. His extended family is respected as an important lineage of drummers and musicians who safeguard and further develop the musical and spiritual culture of the bàtá drums. The American anthropologist Debra Klein has worked with Lamidi Ayankunle and his family since the 1990s. She asserts that the Ayankunle family exemplifies how the bàtá tradition has been reinvented from generation to generation.
The oríkì of Ṣàngó played by Lamidi Ayankunle and his ensemble during a performance in 1987 in Berlin.
With kind permission of the Ethnologisches Museum Berlin/Andreas Meyer.
The oríkì of Ogun played by Lamidi Ayankunle and his ensemble during a performance in 1987 in Berlin.
With kind permission of the Ethnologisches Museum Berlin/Andreas Meyer.
Around the time of Nigerian independence, Lamidi Ayankunle and other drummers of his generation could establish themselves as “traditional” bàtá drummers. Whilst self-identifying as Muslims, they practice and teach the musical and rhythmic repertoires of the bàtá and view themselves as proponents of the “classical” tradition which they aim to preserve for future generations.
In the 1980s, during the military dictatorships of Muhammadu Buhari and Ibrahim Babangida, Lamidi Ayankunle was able to travel and to forge networks with musicians in the US and Europe, thus establishing himself as a traditional bàtá drummer on the newly developing “World Music” scene. He also taught at the Department for Performing Arts at Nigeria’s University of Ifè and became an expert on Yorùbá culture, collaborating with numerous international researchers.
