Kimati Dinizulu

Nana Kimati Dinizulu (September 27, 1956 – July 7, 2013) was an American percussionist born in New York City whose work spanned jazz, folk, classical, popular, ballet, and musical theater. He appeared on Broadway in 1987 in Death and the King's Horseman, a play written and directed by Wole Soyinka. Among the instruments he performed were the Apentemma, Apente, Sankofa, Kyene, djembe, and caxixi.

Dinizulu came from a family with deep roots in African music and performance. His father, Nana Yao Opare Dinizulu (also known as Gus Dinizulu, born Augustus Edwards; 1930–1991), was an internationally acclaimed African drummer. His mother, Ohema Afua Owusua (née Alice Brown; 1930–2007), was a principal dancer with Asadata Dafora's Dance Company, the first company to present African dance and music on Broadway in the United States, active from the 1930s through the 1950s. Dinizulu studied African and African-American hand drumming with his father, as well as with Baba Chief Bey (James Hawthorne Bey), Baba Kwame Ishangi, and others.

As a young man, Dinizulu traveled to Ghana, where he lived for two years to deepen his knowledge of African traditions. During that time he studied with expert drummers Kofi Nabenadi, C. K. Ganyo, and Sully Emmorro, and learned from elders of the Fanti people. The Fanti's Asafo warrior music, a tradition spanning many centuries, became a significant influence on his development. He subsequently made more than 30 additional trips to Africa, residing there for part of each year. He also studied with Haitian master drummers Louis Celestine, Frisner Augustin, and Alphonse Cimber, and studied traditional Brazilian music with Loramil Machado. His research extended to the Maroons of Jamaica, the Ewe of Togo, the Orisha worshipers of Trinidad and Tobago, Rada ritual musicians in Haiti, and the Ring Shouters of the Georgia Sea Islands.

Dinizulu collaborated with author Toni Morrison on N'Orleans - A Storyville Musical, for which he scored music for the Congo Square scene and the Satchmo's last international concert in Ghana scene. He also performed as a percussionist alongside Odetta, Carmen de Lavallade, and Antonio Fargas in that production. He co-composed Divining with Monti Ellison — Judith Jamison's first ballet for the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater — which the company premiered in 1984. Jamison later commissioned him to compose Riverside, which premiered in 1995. Both Divining and Riverside were toured extensively by the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater. Dinizulu also performed with the Sonny Rollins band and with the Paul Winter Consort, participating in A Concert for the Earth in 1985, recorded live at the United Nations General Assembly on World Environment Day.

In 2003, Dinizulu performed at Radio City Music Hall in New York in the Blues Music Foundation's "Salute to the Blues" concert, produced by Martin Scorsese and directed by Antoine Fuqua, which was filmed for television broadcast. Artists sharing the stage included Mavis Staples, Buddy Guy, Mos Def, and Angelique Kidjo. He also performed during Nelson Mandela's 70th Birthday Tribute and was a participant in the African-American delegation at the First Annual Emancipation Day Celebration in Ghana in 1998, sponsored by the Ghanaian government. That delegation was responsible for the re-interment of escaped slave Samuel Carson with a full state funeral.

Dinizulu worked with the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, performing music and conducting traditional African rituals, including pouring libation at the grand opening of the "Lest We Forget: The Triumph over Slavery Exhibit" during the center's 75th-anniversary celebrations. He also performed drum rituals at "A Harlem Tribute to the Freedom Schooner Amistad," helping bring the vessel into port in Harlem, New York. His work with UNESCO included lecturing on endangered African-American instruments at a conference of scholars held at Tulane University, organized as part of the United Nations General Assembly's designation of 2004 as the International Year to Commemorate the Struggle against Slavery and its Abolition.

Dinizulu founded the Kotoko Society, an ensemble of musicians drawn from countries including Ghana, Senegal, Nigeria, Haiti, Trinidad, Barbados, Brazil, Puerto Rico, Jamaica, St. Martin, Panama, and the United States. The society was established to promote traditional African music, raise awareness of African culture, and explore musical styles from Africa, the Caribbean, Brazil, and other regions shaped by African musical traditions. Its performances centered on Sankofa music, a style created by Dinizulu drawing on the proverbial term from the Akan language of Ghana. The Kotoko Society performed at venues including Lincoln Center, the American Museum of Natural History, Columbia University, Medgar Evers College, and Long Island University, playing more than 500 traditional and modern instruments, including instruments of Dinizulu's own design and construction. Nana Kimati Dinizulu died on July 7, 2013.