RockBlocks

Drag rhythmic values into up to 4 beat blocks per line to build a drum groove, or click a tile then click a block to place it — handy on a trackpad.

🎵 West African — West and Central Africa — mess around all you want, nothing here saves
132 BPM
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4/4

West African drum beats — West and Central Africa

West African drumming is built from interlocking parts: a bell or rattle keeps the timeline, and several drums each play a short pattern that only makes the full rhythm when they're heard together. Many pieces are in 12/8, where the same pulses can be felt in twos, threes and fours at once.

Kpanlogo comes from the Ga people of Accra, Ghana, in the 1960s; djole is a festive rhythm played on djembe and dunun; the Ewe 12/8 bell pattern underlies much of Ghana's and Togo's drumming; soukous is the guitar dance music of the Congo; and mbalax is Senegal's popular music, driven by the sabar drums. These play on the Latin kit, whose congas and cowbell stand in for hand drums and the bell.

The beats

  1. Slot A — Kpanlogo (Ghana) · 4/4 · around 120 BPM
  2. Slot B — Djole · 4/4 · around 126 BPM
  3. Slot C — Ewe 12/8 bell · 4/4 · around 112 BPM
  4. Slot D — Soukous (Congo) · 4/4 · around 132 BPM
  5. Slot E — Mbalax (Senegal) · 4/4 · around 120 BPM

Want to play along, or build a song from these? Open them in Drum Loops → Each beat becomes a loop you can edit, with fills, a count-in and a song.