By Taiye Olayemi
Popular female talking drummer, Aralola Olumuyiwa, on Friday, urged the Bank of Industry (BOI), corporate organisations and embassies to support the third edition of the All Female Drummers Festival.
Olumuyiwa, popularly known as Ara, who made the call while speaking with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), in Lagos, said the festival would hold later in the year.
She said the festival, which was her personal initiative was meant to celebrate the beauty of African culture and promote all traditional female drummers in Africa.
According to her, the festival is also designed to empower and inspire female ‘talking drummers’ across the world.
She said since the festival began in 2022, she had only struggled to host each year’s edition through assistance from friends.
“We need support from BOI, embassies and some corporate organisations to make the festival a sustainable one as we also grow our cultural heritage through drumming.
“The festival goes beyond playing musical instruments, it aims to inspire our women to do more, it will be a three days event, featuring seminars on issues that affect the girl-child, it will inspire and empower the girl-child.
“The festival is a viable project for brands,” she said.
Speaking on the previous editions of the festival and her impact in the industry, Ara said she felt so fulfilled as more female traditional drummers continued to emerge through her interventions.
She said learning about traditional drumming had deepened the female drummers’ knowledge of the Yoruba culture that surrounded the language and proverbs.
“I observed that the drumming profession is predominantly male dominated, so I stepped up in ensuring that more women embraced it.
“Today, we have female talking drummers as young as nine years and as old as 62 years, I have been an inspiration to many of them, this is huge for me.
“The theme for the third seminar is “Female But Not Only” which means, there is more to every woman than the mere fact of being a woman and her beauty.
“There will be an award session that will honour those who have promoted African culture through the drumming.
“We will also have a command performance where female traditional drummers across the world will be performing. We will feature workshops, exhibitions and drumming competitions,” she said. (NAN)
