Kabye Folk Music

Kabye folk music is the traditional music of the Kabye (Kabiye) people of Togo's Kara region: the massed soo orchestras of drums, flutes and iron bells that power the Evala initiation wrestling each July, and the pichanchalassi, tuned stone lithophones among the most singular percussion instruments in West Africa. Song and dance mark the agricultural calendar, funerals and the passage of boys into manhood; repertory is held communally, led by master drummers and praise singers rather than named composers. Almost none of it was ever recorded commercially — its principal document is a single ethnographic #Ocora# field-recording disc.