Ancient Text Messages of the Yorùbá Bàtá Drum

The bata is one of the most important and representative percussion traditions of the people in southwest Nigeria, and is now learnt and performed around the world. Although the bata is one of the oldest known Yoruba drumming traditions, the drum and its unique language are now unfamiliar to many contemporary Yoruba people. Amanda Villepastour provides the first academic study of the bata's communication technology and the elaborate coded spoken language of bata drummers, which they refer to as 'ena bata'. The description and analysis of this unique musical system adds substantially to what is known about bata drumming specifically, Yoruba drumming generally, speech surrogacy in music and coded systems of speaking. In this way, the book will appeal not only to ethnomusicologists and anthropologists, but also to linguists and those interested in African Studies.