First things first. The gyil is a traditional West African xylophone with dried gourd resonators hung below most or all of its hardwood keys. (A similar instrument is called a “balafon” in Francophone ...

SK. Kakraba was destined to play the gyil—a 14 bar wooden xylophone from the northern region of Ghana—at birth. Mastering the skill is a tradition passed down directly through his family, most notably ...

Eight musicians, aged 18 to 54, sit in a semicircle playing leather-cased bamboo flutes called atenteben. The sound of the atenteben resonates deep in the eardrums, creating eerie echoes in a variety ...

Out on Parrish beach on the afternoon of Tuesday September 11, a group of interested students gathered around a woman playing a unique instrument. The woman was Gina Ferrera, a Philadelphia-based ...

You’re inevitably familiar with the xylophone. In Western culture, it’s a staple in children’s music classes — a toy ostensibly anyone can play. But for the Lobi tribe of northern Ghana, an ancestor ...

SK Kakraba, a renowned virtuoso on the Ghanaian gyil, a wooden xylophone, will perform with the University of Wyoming Percussion Ensemble Friday, Dec. 2. (SK Kakraba Photo) SK Kakraba, a renowned ...

Kakraba Lobi is a virtuoso master of the gyil (pronounced JEEL or JEE-lee), the traditional instrument of the Lobi people of Ghana, Burkina Faso and the Ivory Coast. After stints as a cab driver, ...

SK Kakraba is master of the gyil, Ghanaian xylophone made of 14 wooden slats strung across calabash gourd resonators. The buzzy rattle emitted with each note comes from the silk walls of spiders' egg ...