in senegal, the wolof, the people of the mande cultures which is the sousou, malinke the bambara-- they speak very fast. you might hear, "naga def," so you might hear, "bla ga da, mangi flec, blanka da, blankadi bla dah bleat bla-bla-bla-bla-bla." so as you could see there's a direct connection with the spoken language and what is being played and how you express it on the drum. mandiani is a rhythm that comes out of the old malian empire. the drums and the instruments that they use for the rhythm mandiani come from the djembe orchestra. the djembe orchestra encompasses maybe two or three djembes usually one principal musician and the bass. this is the djun-djun, and this is the song na. you have the bottom here which would be considered the one, or the downbeat. that's more of the gravity part of the rhythm. this is the upside of the rhythm. and then you have the bell part which is playing, what i learned as an african six. and usually is: one, two, three, four, five, six. one, two, three, four, five, six. when you put all the parts together-- [rhythmic drum beats] it's always the prin