Africa is renowned for the pulsating rhythms of its drums. The membrane drum most significantly illustrates this power. Although membrane drums come in different sizes and shapes, they all have one thing in common: they talk. The concept of a talking drum is widely embraced in African communities and provides perhaps the most important illustration of the way in which musical communication takes place in Africa. But how does an African drum talk? This is a question that many Westerners often ask. Simply put, African drums talk by imitating speech patterns. Most African languages are tonal languages, in the sense that the meaning of a word often depends on how the word is said. For example, the Yorúbá word "e̩-wa" could mean "beauty," "beans," or "please come," depending on how the word is intoned.

African drummers talk through their drums when they make their drum patterns imitate the speech contours of words. A musical performance on a drum is therefore significant not only for its musical features but also for what the drum is "saying." An ability to comprehend the linguistic as well as the musical aspects of a drum performance is an important prerequisite for an effective understanding of African drum music. To illustrate the musical and linguistic features of African drumming, we will focus on Dùndún music of the Yorúbá people of Nigeria and Benin in West Africa.