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Our band joins together to play both traditional and contemporary African songs on marimba, mbira, drums and voices.  Teenagers and adults join together to play this joyful music.  KUUNGANA itself is a Swahili word that means to connect or join.

This lively, danceable music will get your feet tapping and your hips swaying in time to the complex, enticing rhythms.  Listeners often call this “happy music” and people of all ages respond to it with enthusiasm and delight.

We in the band play this amazing music for the joy it brings to us and to the audience.  The lead marimba carries the musical storyline, the other marimbas carry the melodic patterns that weave through the song, and the traditional “hosho”, or gourd rattles, hold the driving beat.  It all comes together in a tapestry of music guaranteed to get you out of your seat and onto the dance floor.

Deb, Maya, Rachel, Aja, John, Jesse, Shea and Tedd (c.2015)
(Currently Deb, John, Rachael, Ray, Tami, Jodi, and Hans)

Our band started with three veterans of the now retired Juba Marimba – Bellingham’s premier marimba band (Deb, John and Tedd) and three veterans of Bellingham’s youth marimba band, The Big Bad Monkeys (Adrienne, Maya and Mo). The original youth and Tedd have all gone off to new adventures and we are now delighted to be joined by Rachel, a graduate of another Bellingham youth marimba band, Joe, from Seattle’s marimba band Nyamuziwa, Logan an mbira player from southern California, and our newest member Rachael from Eugene, Oregon who played marimba at a Kutsinhira Cultural Arts Center band. Other past members of Kuungana are Aja, Sam, Shea and Jesse.