CAS Events: Daniel Jatta - The African Roots Of The New World Banjo(1 Dec 2014)

Daniel Laemouahuma Jatta is a Jola scholar and musician from Mandinary, Gambia, who pioneered the research and documentation of the akonting, a Jola folk lute, as well as the related Manjago folk lute, the buchundu, in the mid-1980s. Jatta has done three decades of research on the relationship between the akontingand the banjo of the American south, and has presented his findings at major congresses in Africa, Europe and the USA. Together with Dr Lucy Duran (Lecturer in African Music) and Dr Toby Green (Lecturer in Lusophone African History and Culture, KCL) he discusses his research and gives a demonstration of the akonting.