The Met's sonic time machine
Seoul's futuristic neon pulse
Lagos's polyrhythmic afrobeat fire
Mexico City's deep Mesoamerican bass
The ultimate digital showdown
themet Mix ancient museum instruments into fresh beats to discover how historic sounds shape modern music.
themet Lagos Afrobeat
Lagos fire, Lagos fire! Sampling history to shake the street, Lagos fire!
themet The dried gourd shekere, covered in woven beads, provides organic high-frequency percussion to digital drum racks.
Speech drums: The talking drum can actually mimic the tonal Yoruba language, allowing musicians to send complex messages across miles.
themet The 21-string kora harp is sampled and looped to form the melodic backbone of modern Nigerian pop tracks.
A genre of popular music combining West African rhythms with elements of jazz, funk, and soul. A Nigerian producer sampled the museum's historic instruments to craft modern tracks in Lagos.
What West African cultural figure traditionally plays the kora to preserve tribal history and stories?
Which Lagos neighborhood is widely celebrated as a central hub for tech, startups, and bedroom music production?
What material is used on a talking drum to connect the two drumheads and control the pitch?
How many strings does a traditional West African kora, a hybrid harp-lute, typically have?
What West African drum is famous for mimicking the pitch and rhythm of human speech when squeezed?
How do Lagos producers use talking drum samples to replace modern synthesizer sounds?
What natural object is used to make the body of a traditional West African shekere shaker?