Talking drum

The talking drum is an hourglass-shaped drum from West Africa, whose pitch can be regulated to mimic the tone and prosody of human speech. It has two drumheads connected by leather tension cords, which allow the player to modulate the pitch of the drum by squeezing the cords between his or her arm and body. A skilled player is able to play whole phrases. Similar hourglass-shaped drums are found in Asia, but they are not used to mimic speech, although the idakka is used to mimic vocal music.

Names in West Africa

History

Hourglass-shaped talking drums are some of the oldest instruments used by West African griots and their history can be traced back to the Yoruba people, the Ghana Empire and the Hausa people. The Yoruba people of south western Nigeria and Benin and the Dagomba of northern Ghana) have developed a highly sophisticated genre of griot music centering on the talking drum . Many variants of the talking drums evolved, with most of them having the same construction mentioned above. Soon, many non-hourglass shapes showed up and were given special names, such as the Dunan, Sangban, Kenkeni, Fontomfrom and Ngoma drums. Interestingly, this construction is limited to within the contemporary borders of West Africa, with exceptions to this rule being northern Cameroon and western Chad; areas which have shared populations belonging to groups predominant in their bordering West African countries, such as the Kanuri, Djerma, Fulani and Hausa.

N'fa

N'fa (born N'fa Forster-Jones; also known as N'fa Jones, 21 March 1979) is an African Australian rapper born in London, but raised in Perth, Western Australia, best known as the frontman for 1200 Techniques. Forster-Jones was a nationally ranked 110m hurdler and placed third at the 2001 and 2002 Australian Championships, and fourth in the 2000 Olympic trials. His personal best recorded time was 14.08s (wind: +1.8) set in Brisbane on 25 March 2001, though clocked 13.91 "unofficial" in Auckland's trans-tasman test meet in 2001.

Early life

His mother Michela Johnson is from Western Australia. His father, Quashie Forster-Jones is from Sierra Leone. Forster-Jones met Heath Ledger at Guildford Grammar School and remained friends until the actor's death in 2008. At a young age, Forster-Jones also dabbled in acting and appeared as a genie in a Tim Tam commercial and played a small role in the film Queen of the Damned - a 2002 film adaptation of the third novel of Anne Rice's, starring Aaliyah and Stuart Townsend.

Naha

Naha (那覇市, Naha-shi, Okinawan: Naafa) is the capital city of Okinawa, the most southern prefecture of Japan.

As of December 2012, the city has an estimated population of 321,467 and a population density of 8,244.46 persons per km². The total area is 38.99 km².

Naha is a city on the East China Sea coast of the southern part of Okinawa Island, the largest of Okinawa Prefecture. The modern city was officially founded on May 20, 1921. Before that Naha had been for centuries one of the most important and populous sites in Okinawa.

Naha is the political, economic and education center of Okinawa Prefecture. In the medieval and early modern periods, it was the commercial center of the Ryūkyū Kingdom.

City center

Central Naha consists of the Palette Kumoji shopping mall, the Okinawa Prefecture Office, Naha City Hall, and many banks and corporations, located at the west end of Kokusai-dōri, the city's main street. Kokusai-dōri (国際通り, "International Avenue") boasts a 1.6 kilometre long stretch of stores, restaurants and bars. Kokusai-dōri ends at the main bus terminal in Okinawa and is served by several stations along the Okinawa Monorail, the only train system in the prefecture.