World Percussion Music Ensemble

The name “Sankofa” is an Akan (Ghanaian vernacular) word that means, “We must go back and reclaim our past so we can move forward; so we understand why and how we came to be who we are today”; it is also derived from the Ga proverb, “It is not wrong nor shameful to go back and fetch what you have lost”, taken from the direct translation of SAN-KO-FA (to fetch, to go back, to take). The band opted to use the name because it believes that one must return to the past, to get and take what value and meaning there is in the past in order to move forward with wisdom and abundance. Musical knowledge of the past must be revisited in order to inform the future of musical ideas.

The band was started in 2005, by a dedicated and experienced team of Wits University students, who enrolled at the Wits School of Arts (WSOA). This led to Sankofa becoming the band that it has evolved into today, with a membership comprising of six (6) professional musicians, pursuing musical development continuously.

The ensemble is an Afro-indigenous Fusion music outfit, a genre coined by the group itself outlining the indigenous African roots in instrument use that is the core of the band’s musical philosophy, and also providing room for collaborative projects, partnerships and composition through the incorporation of acoustic and electronic music instrumentation whilst working with other artists specializing in these western musical artforms.

Comprising of a vast array and assemblage of some of Africa’s most distinct and sometimes rare indigenous instruments, the ensemble also performs with not only instruments of it’s native South Africa, also those of the entire African continent, continuously acquiring and mastering instruments such as African Marimbas, African flutes (self-made), the West African Kora Harp, the Madagascar Valiha bamboo string instrument, mbiras, Jaw Harp, Uhadi, Talking drums, various percussion (both stick played, and hand played) instruments, , agogo, cow bells, rattles, rain stick, congas, bongos; and more globally indigenous inclinations expressed in the acquisition and use of flutes from Egypt, Japan and China and many more.

Sankofa’s vision regarding it’s use of indigenous instruments is to be a dynamic, vibrant vehicle for the cataloguing, storing, playing, advancing and evolution of the usage and cross-cultural application of skillful expertise with indigenous instruments, specifically of Africa as a whole, and in a grander perspective, those indigenous instruments of the rest of the world.

Check out Sankofa’s Progress on our ReverbNation Page & The National Charts Above!