Togo - Musique Kabiye

Our last two posts of African music ("The Music of the Ba-Benzélé Pygmies" and "The Pygmies of the Ituri Forest") were well received by our visitors, so here's another record, this time from the Ocora label, featuring music of the Kabiyè people in Togo, documenting their unique and amazing society and culture. You'll get to hear lithophones (percussion instruments made from stone), whistle flutes (not unlike those of the Ba-Benzélé pygmies), driving drumbeats, polyrhythms, archaic counterpoint of the minimalist kind, and more.

The Kabiyè have lived since time immemorial in northern Togo, in mountains of chaotic and ruined appearance that served as a refuge from invaders, raiders and slave traders. Little by little they have deforested the mountains and, to subsist, have had to labor stubbornly to subdue this rocky land by concentrated agricultural development along the slopes creating veritable hanging gardens, mainly of millet and jams.

This society of incomparable farmers was devoid in the past of traditional chieftains (and professional musicians), but despite this it was not anarchic, because it was organized by age groups, each one having its own function.

These two characteristics determine the role of music in this society: on one hand the relationship with the agricultural cycle, on the other the organization by age groups.

Primarily, the music accompanies the principal feminine and masculine labors. This explains its seasonal character - each agricultural festival is associated with its particular music - and the ban on the use of certain instruments except for established celebrations, like the lithophone and the water flutes. Music's place in agricultural ritual also explains its special role in the worship of the dead, promoters of fertility. Secondarily, music is associated with the age groups, especially the efala and the kondona who, after five years, reach the staus of free man and citizen. The heavy bell, made of paired hoes, is the prerogative of the chief initiates, who present themselves to the people by climbing up an earthen hill, at the top of which they strike the bell.

Recordings, text and photos: Raymond Verdier and Anne-Marie Lavilléon
Recorded between 1960 and 1972

- Lithophone solo -
- Songs -
- Xylophone solo -
- The donga drum -
- Burial music -
- A rain dance -
- Musical Bow solo -
- Flute and horn: message transmission -
- The Orchestra of Landa -

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