Kimati Dinizulu

To gain a deeper knowledge of African traditions, as a young man, Dinizulu, traveled to Ghana where he lived and learned for two years and then he moved back to the United States. Since then, he has made over 30 trips to Africa, where he now resides part of the year. While in Ghana, he studied with expert drummers, Kofi Nabenadi, C. K. Ganyo, and Sully Emmorro. He also learned from elders of the Fanti people, master drummers whose tutelage proved invaluable in his development as a leading practitioner of African drumming. A major influence on his musical growth and creative energies was his involvement with the Fanti’s Asafo (warrior) music, a tradition dating back many centuries.

Dinizulu made numerous worldwide performances over the past decades for many diverse groups of people. Some of Dinizulu's performances include Broadway’s Death and the King's Horseman which is a play written and directed by the legendary Wole Soyinka. Dinizulu has also undertaken many other Broadway productions. In addition, Dinizulu worked with prominent artists such as author Toni Morrison in her production N’Orleans - A Storyville Musical in which he scored music for the Congo Square scene and Satchmo’s last international concert in Ghana scene. He also performed as a percussionist with Odetta, Carmen De Lavallade and Antonio Fargas in this production. Dinizulu co-composed with Monti Ellison Divining, (Judith Jamison's first ballet for the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater), which was premiered by the company in 1984. He was also commissioned by choreographer Judith Jamison for the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater to compose Riverside, which premiered in 1995 and became a smash hit. Divining and Riverside have toured by Ailey extensively throughout the world.

Apart from all this, Dinizulu also performed during Nelson Mandela’s 70th Birthday Tribute. He was also an active member of UNESCO’s efforts to promote knowledge about the slave trade in the world and has given several lectures such as on "African-American Endangered Musical Instruments" and performances on UNESCO’s behalf.

The traditional instruments used to perform Sankofa have been gathered from a wide variety of lands and cultures and are represented in his Kotoko Society's performances. However, Dinizulu not only used these traditional instruments, he also continually introduced new musical instruments of his own design and construction, to complement those, which are already employed by the Kotoko Society. Playing over 500 traditional and modern instruments, the Kotoko society regularly performs at leading concert venues as well as major universities and cultural institutions. They have performed at Lincoln Center, the American Museum of Natural History, Columbia University, Medgar Evers College, Long Island University, as well as other diverse environments such as the Trump Tower and the Philadelphia Folk Festival and toured in Japan and the Caribbean. In addition to these, the group regularly appeared at major nightclubs such as The Sounds of Brazil (S.O.B.’s).

Dinizulu worked with several domestic and international cultural organizations, including UNESCO. UNESCO declared 2004 to be the International Year to Commemorate the Struggle against Slavery and its Abolition by the United Nations General Assembly. Dinizulu performed and lectured on endangered African-American instruments as a part of a UNESCO conference of scholars from around the world gathered at Tulane University.

In the year 2003, Dinizulu performed for the Blues Music Foundation at Radio City Music Hall in New York in the "Salute to the Blues" concert produced by Martin Scorsese and directed by Antoine Fuqua which was filmed for television broadcast. The Blues Music Foundation is a non-profit, international organization and is dedicated to the preservation of blues history and the celebration of blues excellence. Dinizulu performed with artists such as Mavis Staples, Buddy Guy, Mos Def, and Angelique Kidjo in this concert.

Besides this, Dinizulu was a participant in the African-American delegation at the First Annual Emancipation Day Celebration in Ghana, Africa in 1998 which was sponsored by the government of Ghana. The African-American delegation was responsible for the re-interment of one escaped slave, Samuel Carson with a full state funeral. Emancipation Day is a remembrance of the abolition of Chattel Slavery.

He also performed with the Paul Winter Consort which combined elements from various African, Asian and South American cultures with jazz. Together they performed A Concert for the Earth (1985) which was recorded live at the United Nations General Assembly on World Environment Day. Dinizulu was also the percussionist with the Sonny Rollins band.

Furthermore, Dinizulu worked with the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, an organization for documenting, preserving, interpreting, and celebrating the culture and history of black people worldwide. He has performed music and conducted traditional African rituals for the Schomburg Center. He performed at the 75th anniversary celebrations of the Schomburg Center which included pouring libation for the grand opening of the “Lest We Forget: The Triumph over Slavery Exhibit”.

Nana Kimati Dinizulu (27 September 1956 New York City – 7 July 2013) was an American virtuoso percussionist, widely acclaimed for his artistry with African percussion (including apentemma, apente, sankofa, kyene, djembe, and caxixi) in jazz, folk, classical, popular, ballet, and musical theater. He did studio recordings and performed live with artists that included Toni Morrison, Alvin Ailey, Donald McKayle, Gregory Hines, Sonny Rollins, Nina Simone, Harry Belafonte, Wynton Marsalis, Jackie McLean, Dizzy Gillespie, Paul Winter, Lonnie Liston Smith, Steve Turre, Danilo Perez, Stefon Harris, Clifton Anderson, and Vanessa Rubin.

Dinizulu was born September 27, 1956, in New York City. He began playing drums and other percussion instruments in his early childhood. He drew inspiration from the musical heritage of his family. For many generations, the Dinizulu clan had been active in music and performance. Dinizulus's father, Nana Yao Opare Dinizulu (aka Gus Dinizulu, né Augustus Edwards; 1930–1991), an American, was an internationally acclaimed African drummer. Dinizulus's mother, Ohema Afua Owusua (née Alice Brown; 1930–2007), also an American, was a principal dancer for Asadata Dafora's Dance Company — the first dance company to put African dance and music on Broadway in the United States from the 1930s to the 1950s.