Hands On Skin – Chris and Wurrie Diallo

We are a partnership who teach and perform African music and dance and have been making music together since 2002. We are based in Brighton, perform and teach regular classes in djembe and dance in Sussex. We also travel around to deliver our unique West African sound. We have worked at camps & festivals, schools & clubs, one-to-one and with large groups. Everyone has the capacity to learn or enjoy what we can bring and workshops and events can be aimed at a variety of levels of understanding or ability.

We believe that harmonious communication through music helps us all in countless ways. We also believe that music & dance provides a bridge between cultures – that the better we all understand one another the more likely it is that we can co-create a more bearable world. One of us is Guinean and the other English and we have been teaching and playing together in Britain since January 1996. We return to West Africa regularly to work with our teachers and other musicians and bring back what we have learned.

We also trade in drums and other musical instruments and although we are not a registered fair trade company as yet we try to behave as ethically as possible with the craftspeople we trade with and pay a ‘fair’ price for quality work. Our trade links are still tiny sprouts as yet but we hope to strengthen them and grow into a larger organisation with greater benefits to all we work with.

We are grateful for all the help and support we have received from our friends and family in both continents. It takes many people to make a drum as the saying goes – 1 to cut the tree, 1 to shape it, 1 to kill the goat (probably several to eat the goat!), 1 to skin the drum, 1 to sell it, 1 to play it….. and then how many to listen? Our own journey also involves many, too many to name them all, but we don’t forget any of the kindnesses we have received and the music we play and teach comes from that space of remembering and celebrating the vast and complex interchange of human relationships.

About Chris Diallo

Chris was born in Stoke-On-Trent and although she has always loved singing and had a brief and disastrous relationship with the violin in childhood she came to music later in life. Having worked at the WOMAD world music festival for years and seen English people playing African drums she finally went to a class with a friend and was hooked.

She’s been playing for 8 years now, initially working with a variety of teachers in England. Drumbreaks (a style developed by Peter Scott) teachers such as Liz Carter, Ruth Jennie and Chris Garland were important in her early development, as was Simon Mc Carthy and she then went on to work with teachers of a more traditional West African style such as Fern Camera, Bucarr Ndow, Ali Bangora and Henri Gao Bi.

She took her first trip out to the Gambia to work with Masta Canon with Jambass music in 2001 and then went back regularly to study, at least once a year for three weeks. It was during one of these trips that she met Wurrie and they have been playing and singing together ever since. They lived together in the Gambia for a while and are now mostly based in England.

As well as learning djembe and bass from Masta, Chris learned dance informally from a variety of sources with artistes in the Gambia; Babuccar, from Roots Manding and Pearr from Roots Kuntakinte being particularly helpful, both allowed her to dance with the troupes when she was out there. She also learned gongo from Wurrie. She played djembe as a ‘guest’ member of African Ballet for 4 months and has also played in one of Wurrie’s small ensembles in restaurants and bars.

Together Chris and Wurrie learned balafon, a long-cherished desire of Chris’ with Seikou Soma, having 4 months intensive training in 2004 and then on periodic visits since. They also learned West African dance with Zaggaire in the Gambia & a variety of others in Guinea. As well as playing balafon together Chris and Wurrie have done some collaborative work with Hullaballo Quire using balafon and voice. In England Chris is an original member of the Djembe Divas, a women’s’ drumming group based in Brighton. She and Wurrie teach regular drum and dance classes and workshops and perform in Brighton and elsewhere.

About Wurrie Diallo

Wurrie was born in Labe in Guinea Conakry, West Africa, and also spent time in Mali as a child. He initially trained as a welder, but he was always fascinated by traditional music. Many of his friends were musicians and he spent as much time as he could playing and singing. In 2001 he went to The Gambia where he studied various instruments and West African dance, making his living as a musician.

Wurries’ passion for music led him to teach himself a great deal. He has also worked with several teachers. Master Abdulai Keita (Masta Cannon) taught him djembe and bass drums (kankini, sambhan and doundoun). He was part of the drum/dance ensemble ‘African Ballet’ with Masta from 2001 to 2005, sometimes as a dancer or a ‘fire dancer’, sometimes as a djembe player. He has also danced and played with other ensembles in the Gambia such as Folonko. As well as playing drums he learned to make them has made djembes for both local and export markets.

In addition to the more well known djembe and bass drums, Wurrie plays a variety of lesser known instruments that come specifically from Guinea. These are: The gongo or gongomah - a kind of (idiophone) - like the kalimba or South African mbira. This is very different to the mbira in that it has only 3 or 4 notes and is played with one hand while the other taps out a counter-rhythm. Made of calabash, plywood and old hacksaw blades and often decorated by its owner. Wurrie learned this from another Guinean after he’d made one for himself, and played that at weddings and naming ceremonies as well as in small ensembles in hotels and restaurants in The Gambia for several years. He then taught Chris and they often play duets on the gongo using either traditional West African material or some of the songs Wurrie has created himself.

The bolong or bolongbata – the West African ‘double bass. Again played with one hand on the strings and the other tapping a counter rhythm. This is difficult to describe adequately, made of calabash, wood & goat skin (the strings also). Look at the picture to understand how it’s played.

He and Chris have been learning balafon (the West African xylophone with gourd resonators giving it its characteristic sound) with Seikou Soma since Oct 2004 and Wurrie has played and taught alongside Seikou since then.

Wurrie plays, makes and teaches all these instruments. His performance career includes solo work, with his partner Chris as part of Hands-On-Skin or as part of small ensembles. He is multilingual and sings in Susu, Mandinka, Fuller, Wolof, English and French. All of his music is based on traditional West African patterns but with arrangements reflecting his teachers and his own styles and preferences.