Akonting//Bass I (Prototype)

Featured in the 124th Annual Student Exhibition at PAFA.

Part of my art jazz band that doesn’t exist yet, The Prototypes.

So.. this Akonting/Bass is in my DNA.

When you find your connection to two African groups with extensive histories crafting and playing stringed instruments, you begin to realize why you wanted to build a guitar during the Pandemic. You start to appreciate all the times people told you "black kids don't play guitar," and you smile. When you do the research that reveals that the Portuguese brought guitars to one port, and that other groups further down the coast were making lutes and what is known as the precursor to the banjo, you can see how the combination of that musicianship was carried on to your grandparents. You understand why your father gravitated towards the bass guitar, and why you think Wes Montgomery, Jimmy Nolen, and Jimi Hendrix (among others) need to be celebrated more...

It can be played, and eventually I will record some of the funk for you all. I promise.

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