Gumbe

Gumbe, also spelled gumbé, is the principal popular music of Guinea-Bissau: a fast, polyrhythmic dance music sung in Guinea-Bissau Creole that fuses elements of roughly ten of the country's folk traditions. Its core sound rests on calabash and drum percussion, with electric guitars translating drum patterns into interlocking melodic lines, call-and-response singing and topical, often humorous lyrics. Developed by urban bands in Bissau in the years around independence in 1974, gumbe became the young nation's trademark sound, absorbing highlife, Congolese rumba and Portuguese influences while remaining rooted in Balanta, Manjack, Mandinka and Papel traditions.