Congolese Drums with Andre Toungamani is the third installment of Senegal Sessions and the first instrumental pack in the series. This groovy pack focuses on creating sounds to dance to in the style of Mbalax, Afrobeat, hip hop, and dancehall.
Mbalax (or Mbalakh) is the national popular dance music of Senegal and the Gambia. It has sacred origins in the Serer people, an ultra-religious, ultra-conservative njuup music tradition and their sacred ndut rite ceremonies. By the 1970s, it became a fusion with other popular music from the African diaspora, the West, and Afropop such as jazz, soul, Latin, Congolese rumba, and rock blended with sabar, the traditional drumming and dance music of the Wolof—an ethnic group of northwestern Senegal. The genre’s name derived from accompanying rhythms used in sabar called mbalax.
Although Toungamani hails from Congo, he’s considered one of the best Mbalax players in Senegal. This fusion of cultures has provided the music community with a rhythmic gift to be unwrapped loop-by-loop in this pack. Filled with passion, history, cultural pride, and rhythm, find one-shots and loops that will add some serious movement to your next production.