Before the banjo, the instrument at the heart of so much folk, country and bluegrass music, was the ekonting: a self-built, three-string gourd instrument with a muted but characterful tone, played by the Jola people of Senegal, the Gambia and Guinea-Bissau. In 2000, ethnomusicologist Daniel Laemou-Ahuma Jatta demonstrated its uncanny similarity to early Caribbean and American instruments at a US banjo convention; alongside other west African lutes such as the ngoni, xalam and gimbri, it drives stories of survival and self-expression.
