Handed Down - Nevada Arts Council

1994–1995
African Drumming:
Mohamed Barrie and Eric Jackson
The African American community in Las Vegas
makes up about ten percent of the population,
and has a long and sometimes difficult history dating
back to the 1940s when migrants from Arkansas and
Louisiana began arriving to work in war industries.
There is a growing desire for cultural activities within
the community as well as a need to share them with the
rest of the city, and the establishment of a local citysponsored
art center, several African American cultural
organizations and a dance group called Children of the
Diaspora African Musical Ensemble (CODAME) in
recent years have all enriched the established culture of
the community.
An apprenticeship in African drumming which
brought Mohamed Barrie from Sierra Leone to work
with Eric Jackson provided another boost for African
roots in Las Vegas. Mohamed is from Freetown, Sierra
Leone, and began learning traditional dancing, drumming
and storytelling from his father when he was only
five years old. He is currently a member of the Freetown
Players, a performing group that has been touring the
US for several years.
Mohamed explains that drums are integral to African
culture: “The drum, it call you, it tell you everything.
So the drum is more important back home, it is kind of
the language, talking to people back home.” For dancers,
the drum tells them when to
move. “You don’t need to look at
the lights or I’m waiting for my
red light, or a ten count, no. The
drum, as soon as the drum call
them, that’s their language, it’s
up to them, they don’t need to
read or hear somebody say ‘Are
you ready?’ You listen to the
drum. That’s our own teacher,
you know.” African dance is a
very improvisational art form,
and the dancers and drummers
must work closely together as
they create a performance.
Apprentice Eric Jackson’s father is a drummer and
he has been studying drumming for years, and specifically
African drumming for the last three years or so.
The first dance he learned from Mohamed was a harvest
dance, which acts out the sowing and harvesting
of rice, the principal crop of Sierra Leone. Mohamed
insisted on teaching Eric the dance first because, “The
lead drummer, he should know everything about the
dance. He do everything, that’s why he need to know
the moves, he need to know everything about the dance,
the story, because he controls the dance, nobody else.”
Mohamed also worked with the dancers of CODAME
to teach the Harvest Dance while he was in Las Vegas.
The integration of art into the everyday life of Africans
was one of the strongest points Mohamed tried
to make. “Let me tell you something about Africa,” he
says. “If you know how to play the drum you should
know how to dance, you should know how to sing, because
it’s everyday life, you know. Like school, we play
drums at school when we’re playing, tell stories, so before
you grow up you should know how to tell stories,
dance, play the drums, all those things.”
Eric Jackson and Mohamed Barrie
practicing African druming.
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