The man in the foreground of the photo above is the brilliant, visionary and kind master drummer Khalid Abdul N'Faley Saleem. That picture is from the 1990's, probably in Durham, NC, where I met Khalid when we both lived on Burch Avenue. Not long after I recorded this song Khalid moved from Durham to teach at Stoney Brook University, New York, where he wroked and played until recently. I learned this month that Khalid is currently teaching at Appalachian State in Boone, NC. You can read about about his connection to this song in my post below the lyrics.
Drummers on the recording are Beverly Bottsford, Robin Burdulis, Karen Kelley, Jaqui MacMillan, Beth Shulman, and Sonya Stewart. Other musicians: Toddie Stewart on bass, me on piano, Ariana Lightningstorm, Diana Sunday, Rachel Ann Cross, and myself on vocals.
Redemption Song (excerpt)
© Bob Marley
I made a few small changes to sing it as a white person: "Africa was made strong" rather than "my hands were made strong" etc.
All pirates yes they robbed her
Sold her to the merchant ship
Minutes after they took her
From the bottomless pit
Oh but Africa was made strong
By the hand of the Almighty
She followed in this generation, triumphant
Won't you help to sing these songs of freedom?
'Cause all I ever had redemption songs
Won't you help to sing these songs of freedom?
'Cause all I ever had redemption songs
Redemption songs, redemption songs, redemption songs
Drums of Africa
© K Hannan 1997
White man brought the Africans in chains across the water
White man swore he'd make a brand new world upon this shore
White man drank the whiskey, to try to drown his shame
He swore the drums of Africa would be heard no more
'Cause the drums could tell a story across the night time sky
The drums could play a freedom that would make an angel cry!
And the white man feared the power made a people move that way
So he tried to stop the drumming
He could not stop the drumming!
But he swore he'd stop the drumming
He made made it a crime to play
'Cause Africa was made strong, Africa was made strong
Africa was made strong
The drums of the Almighty carried Africa along
And the drums were in the fields, the drums were in the street,
The drums were in the tapping of a thousand dancing feet
The drums were in the churches, the drums were in the jive
Every pulse of every heart beat kept the drums alive
'Cause Africa was made strong., Africa was made strong
Africa was made strong
The drums of the Almighty carried Africa along
And it wasn't just Aretha, or just Malcom, or just King
In a thousand little churches, you could hear the drummers sing
Singin' Africa was made strong....
© Bob Marley
I made a few small changes to sing it as a white person: "Africa was made strong" rather than "my hands were made strong" etc.
All pirates yes they robbed her
Sold her to the merchant ship
Minutes after they took her
From the bottomless pit
Oh but Africa was made strong
By the hand of the Almighty
She followed in this generation, triumphant
Won't you help to sing these songs of freedom?
'Cause all I ever had redemption songs
Won't you help to sing these songs of freedom?
'Cause all I ever had redemption songs
Redemption songs, redemption songs, redemption songs
Drums of Africa
© K Hannan 1997
White man brought the Africans in chains across the water
White man swore he'd make a brand new world upon this shore
White man drank the whiskey, to try to drown his shame
He swore the drums of Africa would be heard no more
'Cause the drums could tell a story across the night time sky
The drums could play a freedom that would make an angel cry!
And the white man feared the power made a people move that way
So he tried to stop the drumming
He could not stop the drumming!
But he swore he'd stop the drumming
He made made it a crime to play
'Cause Africa was made strong, Africa was made strong
Africa was made strong
The drums of the Almighty carried Africa along
And the drums were in the fields, the drums were in the street,
The drums were in the tapping of a thousand dancing feet
The drums were in the churches, the drums were in the jive
Every pulse of every heart beat kept the drums alive
'Cause Africa was made strong., Africa was made strong
Africa was made strong
The drums of the Almighty carried Africa along
And it wasn't just Aretha, or just Malcom, or just King
In a thousand little churches, you could hear the drummers sing
Singin' Africa was made strong....
The story of Drums of Africa begins way before the 1990's of course, but the direct inspiration for the Drums of Africa song was in 1996 when Khalid Saleem led a two hundred person drum circle for a Unity In The Community Earth Day Celebration in a parking lot near Duke University. I was astounded in joy to hear the drum rhythms thundering out, to see that huge circle of African American men, women and children along with people of other races, playing and dancing the powerful and joyful music of Africa.
In Durham, as in all corners of our country, slavery, segregation and oppression have left a trail of injury and injustice that still affects us all today. And yet, in my heart that day in 1996, I felt that the sounds and sights of the music and movement were an expression of freedom itself, pure and simple, a freedom that is untouched by time or the savagery of history. Music can do that! And African American music in particular, forged in the crucible of terrible cruelty and suffering, feels to me particularly liberating because of the miracle of its beauty and improvisatory freedom arising despite centuries of oppression. There is in the human heart/soul something indestructible, and it was shining out in Durham, in a state where for centuries Black and Indigenous people had been forced to work in bondage, and where the "NC "1715 Code" prevented enslaved people from gathering in groups for any reason, including religious worship, and required white people to help capture escaped freedom-seeking enslaved people. "
I went home that Earth Day deeply inspired by Khalid's powerful and gentle leadership, and his commitment to community music. And Bob Marley's Redemption Song started humming in my mind... "Africa was made strong by the hand of the almighty. We followed in this generation, triumphant." That's what that Unity In The Community drum circle felt like to me, triumphantly free. the Drums of Africa was born shortly afterwards in deep gratitude for the inspiration and joy I felt that day.
I'm posting this in honor of Khalid and the other musicians and dancers who inspired me so deeply that day, and in honor of all the singers and musicians who powered the Civil Rights movement in the US.
And I dedicate the song today also to the young people In Florida and around the country who in February of 2023 are standing up to injustice once again, in the form of suppression of African American history.
I feel certain that as hard as humans may try, we cannot keep freedom down because it is what we all are at our core. So in the middle of oppression everywhere around the world, freedom rises, and rises, and rises again. And musical/artistic freedom, political freedom and spiritual freedom intertwine, elucidate and strengthen each other.
During his 27 years in South Africa's prisons, Nelson Mandela spent a lot of time contemplating freedom, and he discovered, as many people do who dedicate themselves to justice, the spiritual freedom at the very core of our human desire for personal, cultural and political freedom. The freedom to be aware of being Love itself.
President Mandela beautifully expressed his discovery:
"The hunger for my own freedom became
the greater hunger for the freedom of my people.
The chains on any one of my people
were the chains on all of my people.
It was during those long lonely years that my hunger
for the freedom of my own people became a hunger
for the freedom of all people, white and black.
I knew as well as I knew anything that the oppressor
must be liberated as surely as the oppressed.
When I walked out of prison, that was my mission,
to liberate the oppressed and the oppressor, both."
Nelson Mandela in Long Walk To Freedom
the greater hunger for the freedom of my people.
The chains on any one of my people
were the chains on all of my people.
It was during those long lonely years that my hunger
for the freedom of my own people became a hunger
for the freedom of all people, white and black.
I knew as well as I knew anything that the oppressor
must be liberated as surely as the oppressed.
When I walked out of prison, that was my mission,
to liberate the oppressed and the oppressor, both."
Nelson Mandela in Long Walk To Freedom
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