"The spirit of the drum is something that you feel but cannot put your hands on,
It does something to you from the inside out . . .
It hits people in so many different ways.
But the feeling is one that is satisfying and joyful.
It is a feeling that makes you say to yourself, '
I'm glad to be alive today! I'm glad to be part of this world!"
---Babatunde Olatunji

Baba Olatunji electrified the world with his 1959 album release of "Drums of Passion." Forty years later, the sacred sounds of his West African drums and songs still call the people to the heart of healing, joy, prayer, and unity. Hope rings universally as audiences around the world join his drums, his chants, and his inspiration.

Baba was the single most important contributor to the popularization of African hand drumming in the United States. Baba created the popular Gun-Dun, Go-Do, Pa-Ta method of learning drum patterns in which these spoken sounds were able to help recall the sounds made on most hand drums -- with the Gun-Dun denoting the bass notes played with right and left hands; the Go-Do denoting the open tones; and the Pa-Ta denoting the slaps. This simple method revolutionized the learning rate for thousands of hand drum students in the West. He is also well-known for popularizing the popular Liberian rhythm Fanga (a song of welcome to which he added words), which was often played for him by his students when he would enter a workshop.