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Luanda Reggae Defenders - what is your long term agenda?

Luanda Reggae Defenders is a now a popular movement with roots in Vihiga and border Siaya and Kakamega counties Attention is brought to the manner and conduct the movement has gained fame and followers, mainly the Youths. The movement capitalizes on funerals. With a poor culture of putting the dead to rest, the Reggae Defenders have taken it by storm and rebranded the infamous ‘Disco Matanga’ – disco at funeral. Reggae Defenders on move. Pic: Charles Rankings: Facebook They mobilize quickly on the day the dead will be discharged from the mortuary. They have this huge old school sound system that is over buzzing to no clear reggae song - that they hire a pickup to carry - and it has a young DJ mainly standing there than mixing anything. Often, against the rules, the casket is grabbed from a hearse vehicle and tied to a motorbike. There it will be swayed and jerk breaked between other motorbikes on the narrow roads. That, is, how a fellow soldier, often a young dead, is mourned. ...
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Lets go dance to the rhythm of drums.

A traditional drum set is composed of two solos, two midranges, a medium and a bass. That is what could be made from animal hides apart from other uses. Long before tin drums, logs could be drilled and form the old sukuti set. Unlike the drums, sukuti's full set has a concoction of one main and two kids with a bell, a bottle and scrubbing iron, jingles and a kayamba. It needs men to make a village dance.

All times were not the same. How a circumciser hit his small drum as he ran down the ridges to meet boys with long foreskins is not the same pitch a death announcement would be made. Wrong drum beatings activated the spirits of not their time and this could anger them like to cause death because mourning spirits were awakened. Never mess with a circumciser at such moments for the point of his drum stick is the greatest curse of a time. Never lie to him- he knows lies by the reply of his drum. A beat after every small task.


In religious practices, drums could evoke salvation mood. Some traditional practices are in the modern churches of dancing by the tune of the drum. Keyboarding and guitars are too solemn to evoke spirit dance. Men and women, revered by their power to tune a round song to a rising pitch of drum beats leave the body refreshed and dust resettling on newer surfaces. The power of drums.

One has to survive the stench of wet skin and the process of its drying. Flies are as many as there could be. Expertise is to know what a drum it will be while still holding on a fresh animal skin. Soaking softens the skin and makes it easy to cut. To avoid bruises from the drying skin strips a sisal sack is placed round where the body is in contact with the drum. A small incision on one side of bass drum is to allow vibration- an exhaust. It is on this side that the palm of the hand is applied as the other side may even suffer stick beatings. And when it is tight, water is the lubricator. Injury on the dead skin is survived by a puncture repair. 

Next time, away from the loud speakers of the city, take me to a village burial ceremony and allow me to join the night drums. Let me shake my waist to the sting of death and piss on it. Let me mock it as I live. Let the man beating the drum never tire in awakening the ancestral spirits. This is that by the time I too close my eyes in sleep, I'll have danced to the true ancestral spirit that sends people peaceful in a world of no sickness.


 
Courtesy of Peter Mugoywa, a drum hanger.

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