It Starts With A Beat
I started thinking about drums when I was planning my wedding years ago. I just couldn’t imagine my wedding without drums. Every significant event of my childhood had drums, and I knew I needed them at my wedding too.
That decision took me down a path of learning more about drumming in Yorùbá culture. I couldn’t stop. So I wanted to share just a little with you as a way to softly usher in the beginning of Ẹlẹ́wà.
More Than Entertainment
In Yorùbá cosmology, drums weren’t just for entertainment. They were for communication.
The àyàn (the talking drum) could mimic Yorùbá speech so precisely it became its own language. Your name, your lineage, your mother’s prayer… all of it could be spoken through rhythm.
To be called by the drum wasn’t casual. It meant: we remember.
Diaspora Echoes
In Cuba, Yorùbá Bàtá drums evolved into a family structure:
- Ìyá — the mother
- Ìtòtele — the father
- Okónkolo — the child
The mother leads, the father responds, the child keeps steady time.
It’s not exactly how it was structured in West Africa, but it’s how it was remembered and that remembering is sacred too.
Not Just Celebration
Not every drum was for joy. Some were made to hold grief, to settle trauma, to help people find their breath again.
Long before we had words like nervous system regulation, our ancestors knew rhythm could move pain through the body instead of letting it get stuck there.
Rhythm was — and is — medicine.
The Rhythm Lives
Drumming isn’t an ancient relic. It never stopped speaking.
It’s in your chest when a memory stirs.
It’s in your body answering a song before your mind knows the words.
It’s when you light incense and something shifts in the room.
So We Begin With Drums
This is why Ẹlẹ́wà’s first Sonatation begins with drums.
Drums were how we announced important things. How we called people home. How we said: something sacred is beginning.
And something sacred is beginning.
Strike a match. Light the incense. Let whatever rhythm is calling you now find you.