From Africa to Appalachia 

Never forget its predominantly Celtic in origin

@@josephperkins4080 that's funny, tell another one 😂🤣

@@josephperkins4080 No, it's African, stop tryna claim our culture, get yours.

@@josephperkins4080 no it's not

@@rdb.9 Africa influenced Scottish and European music as much as American. : )

@@wk8570 Of course. What's your point?

It’s about the layering of sounds. Even the subtlest notes make a huge difference in a song

I wonder if they should have just turned him up, or maybe run the audio through a compressor and let his instrument sidechain the other two. I like their sound together, but I agree, some of what he was doing was lost to the swell of sounds

Ikr

clawhammer! 🤣🤣

except it was not nor is it now played anything like the modern Banjo, invented by Joel Sweeney..

@@PickedOff100 Joe Sweeney played the Minstrel banjo in blackface. It's the same instrument no matter the change in playing style. Even the name was the same. Sweeney was imitating and even mocking Black people even if he did admire the instrument that remains an African American instrument to this day.

​@@kemetnubiakamp No, it's not the same instrument. Clearly you are not a banjo player nor a ngoni player. Furthermore, logically the banjo is derived from a west African instrument but it is not an African American instrument just like the electric guitar is not a Spanish American instrument; they are both just American instruments derived from the African instrument and the Spanish instrument respectively. The drumset is an American instrument. It is not a European, Chinese or Turkish American instrument, since it was invented in America, even though it is derived from marching band drums, Chinese drums and wood blocks and Turkish cymbals. That's just cultural diffusion 101.

@@wk8570 The banjo is an African instrument of the West Indies where the oldest accounts are of white plantation owners documenting their enslaved Africans playing a "banja"/"banjo (note there is a lute instrument called "bunchundo" that exists in Gambia is possibly the origin of the American name but this instrument is widely West African by various names)) with a calabash gourd resonator. The same instrument is depicted in a 1700s painting of a South Carolina plantation, called The Old Plantation, of enslaved Africans playing instruments - including the banjo - and dancing. Subsequently, the older paintings of the wood-framed banjo that was created by a white man also are of African players hence the several "banjo player" paintings. When whites began playing the banjo, they did so in Minstrel show blackface and even hired black banjo players to blacken their faces to perform banjo and sing in the same shows for white audiences. The banjo is an African American (broadly because it includes the Caribbean) instrument that whites eventually copied.

@@wk8570 Also there is another video with this same Akonting player. It's the same instrument just as an electric guitar is the same as an acoustic guitar and can't be claimed as a different instrument because of changes in development.

And if you are someone who's actively doing those things in the comments here, you're essentially doing the exact opposite of what this video is about

The banjo is an evolution, just like guitar was. Types of stringed instruments go back to way before Old Testaament times.🎼🎵🎵🎼🎼

there is no ignoring the historical fact that the West Africans brought on slave ships en masse to the american south also brought their instrument making techniques and traditional music to america, resulting in the creation of the five string banjo. it was NOT created in isolation, the people who first invented a banjo like instrument (the akonting) brought those techniques, if not the actual instruments themselves, to america further modernizing them later with industrialization and such.

I think it was just a "banjo jam" that came together by each players' special heritage and individual approach to banjo, and what makes it work is the magical nature of the banjo itself...

No it isn't, the banjo is an instrument created by Africans/African Americans and was a plantation instrument. Stop trying to distort history.

@@ABlue-iz4rg it was not. it was called a totally different name. It was the akonting and only had three strings. The modern banjo is played different and looks different. It is a euro american creation inspired by the akonting or the akonting is the precursor but not the same. Maybe you should not distort history and get your facts straight.

@@vividlybeats6058 you should get YOUR facts straight. The Banjo is a plantation instrument created by my people period. I don't know why you can't accept that. The Banjo and the akonting are 2 separate instruments, stop trying to distort my people's history.

@@ABlue-iz4rg Because its not true. White European people made the modern banjo to white European musical tastes. The akonting is the precursor. If you don't like that that is all you. Its a separate instrument different from the original black instrument which was called the Akonting. Black people never want to claim the banjo except for when they want clout from whites so it does not surprise me your wasting my time argueing otherwise.

@@vividlybeats6058 When you look up the Banjo and the stories of people playing the Banjo, its about Black Americans. Again YOU are the person in denial, people like you could never bring yourself to believe that Black people created something whether it be an instrument or modern civilization. With that being said I'm done with you, you can go off in your delusional world.