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Burru is a unique style of
drum The drum is a member of the percussion group of musical instruments. In the Hornbostel–Sachs classification system, it is a membranophone. Drums consist of at least one membrane, called a drumhead or drum skin, that is stretched over a ...
ming used in
Jamaica Jamaica is an island country in the Caribbean Sea and the West Indies. At , it is the third-largest island—after Cuba and Hispaniola—of the Greater Antilles and the Caribbean. Jamaica lies about south of Cuba, west of Hispaniola (the is ...
n music.


Description of the rhythm and of the types of drums

"Burru" consists of alternations of a
beat Beat, beats, or beating may refer to: Common uses * Assault, inflicting physical harm or unwanted physical contact * Battery (crime), a criminal offense involving unlawful physical contact * Battery (tort), a civil wrong in common law of inte ...
made by one drummer, and another beat by another drummer, like a conversation between two or more people: this pattern is named
call and response Call and response is a form of interaction between a speaker and an audience in which the speaker's statements ("calls") are punctuated by responses from the listeners. This form is also used in music, where it falls under the general category of ...
, and can be observed in almost all African-rooted music, such as the first Afro-American music genres like
blues Blues is a music genre and musical form that originated among African Americans in the Deep South of the United States around the 1860s. Blues has incorporated spiritual (music), spirituals, work songs, field hollers, Ring shout, shouts, cha ...
and
gospel Gospel originally meant the Christianity, Christian message ("the gospel"), but in the second century Anno domino, AD the term (, from which the English word originated as a calque) came to be used also for the books in which the message w ...
, among others. Three types of drums were used in most arrangements: they consisted of "Bass", "Fundeh" and "Repeater" drum. All three drums had very important roles: the Bass drum carried the rhythm, the Fundeh drum added syncopation, and the Repeater drum brought in the melody. Occasionally, lyrics would be incorporated as well into songs. They would still follow the "call and response" pattern.


History, origin and meanings of the term

This style of drumming originated in
West Africa West Africa, also known as Western Africa, is the westernmost region of Africa. The United Nations geoscheme for Africa#Western Africa, United Nations defines Western Africa as the 16 countries of Benin, Burkina Faso, Cape Verde, The Gambia, Gha ...
, and later moved to the
Caribbean The Caribbean ( , ; ; ; ) is a region in the middle of the Americas centered around the Caribbean Sea in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, mostly overlapping with the West Indies. Bordered by North America to the north, Central America ...
as a result of the
atlantic slave trade The Atlantic slave trade or transatlantic slave trade involved the transportation by slave traders of Slavery in Africa, enslaved African people to the Americas. European slave ships regularly used the triangular trade route and its Middle Pass ...
; on the
slave plantation A slave plantation is an agricultural farm that uses enslaved people for labour. The practice was abolished in most places during the 19th century. Slavery Planters embraced the use of slaves mainly because indentured labor became expensive ...
s, slave masters permitted its continuance as it provided a rhythm for the slaves to work by. The term "burru" originates from the African
Twi language Twi (; ) is the common name of the Akan literary language of Asante and Akuapem. Effectively, it is a synonym for 'Akan' that is not used by the Fante people. It is not a linguistic grouping, but more of a common name used by inland Akans a ...
word "bru", meaning to "ravage", "strike" or "destroy", and this term is also present in the
Jamaican patois Jamaican Patois (; locally rendered Patwah and called Jamaican Creole by linguists) is an English-based creole language with influences from West African, Arawak, Spanish and other languages, spoken primarily in Jamaica and among the Jamaican ...
, where it refers to an individual that is a "ruffian". For this reason, it was possibly an insult from one Twi speaking slave or
Coromantee Coromantee, Coromantins, Coromanti or Kormantine (derived from the name of the Ghanaian slave fort Fort Amsterdam, Ghana, Fort Kormantine in the Ghanaian town of Kormantse, Central Ghana) is an English-language term for Atlantic slave trade, en ...
(an archaic British term to refer to Twi speaking
Akan Akan may refer to: People and languages *Akan people, an ethnic group in Ghana and Côte d'Ivoire *Akan languages, a language group within the wider Central Tano languages *Kwa languages, a language group which includes Akan *Central Tano language ...
slaves from the inland, north of the Gold Coast) to another. The word also refers to an Ashanti kind of drum called Aburukuwa, cylindrical in shape, and known in Jamaica as "Burru drum".


How and by who Burru is used

Burru has been used in many ways over the years. This style was at first known as a more aggressive form of drumming, due to the loud and hard beats. However, burru in West Africa was used more as a form of cultural expression, and it would frequently have been used in arrangements called
talking drum The talking drum is an hourglass-shaped drum from West Africa, which can be used as a form of speech surrogacy by regulating its pitch and rhythm to mimic the tone and prosody of human speech. It has two drumheads connected by leather t ...
s. It has also been used in
reggae Reggae () is a music genre that originated in Jamaica during the late 1960s. The term also denotes the modern popular music of Jamaica and its Jamaican diaspora, diaspora. A 1968 single by Toots and the Maytals, "Do the Reggay", was the first ...
music, popularised by Count Ossie, and used by artists such as
Bob Marley Robert Nesta Marley (6 February 1945 – 11 May 1981) was a Jamaican singer, songwriter, and guitarist. Considered one of the pioneers of reggae, he fused elements of reggae, ska and rocksteady and was renowned for his distinctive voca ...
.


References

{{Reflist Drumming Music of Jamaica