If you’ve ever heard a djembe played live, you know the feeling — that deep, chest-thumping bass followed by a crack of tone so sharp it seems to cut through the air. It’s one of the most expressive hand drums in the world, and it’s also one of the most approachable instruments a beginner can pick up. Before your hands ever touch the skin, though, it helps to understand where this drum comes from, why it sounds the way it does, and how a single log becomes a finished instrument.

One of the most important parts of choosing a djembe is also one of the most enjoyable: finding the drum that feels right for you.

When I talk to customers, whether they’re standing in the workshop with me or we’re having a conversation remotely from somewhere on the other side of the world, I always explain that choosing a djembe isn’t simply about finding the biggest, heaviest or most expensive drum.  It is however important that you select the right wood – “you are buying wood as the foundation of the build”

It is about finding the right balance between sound, size, feel, appearance and what you actually want to do with the instrument.

And, perhaps most importantly of all, you need to like the drum.

One of the questions we’re often asked is, “How do I choose the right djembe?”

For many customers, it’s simple. They browse our website, choose a drum they love and place their order. Where possible, we also include sound clips so you can hear the drum before you buy, giving you even more confidence in your choice.

At Wooden Roots, we build every djembe with a simple hope: that it finds its way into the hands — and hearts — of people who value its story as much as its sound. So you can imagine our delight when we learned that one of our djembe drums now has a permanent home at the Museum of Exploration, the newly opened museum from the National Geographic Society.

The Wooden Roots Experience is an immersive weekend event originally created by Wooden Roots in the USA in 2015, and is now proudly delivered in the UK through their Community Interest Company, Rhythm with Roots.

This unique event brings world-class West African artists to Suffolk, creating an opportunity for participants to engage with authentic West African music, dance, and cultural traditions in a high-quality, accessible, and immersive setting.

We recently had a visit from Yahael Camara-Onono of the Balimaya Project and we think that he explains playing levels beautifully in this video.

Yahs will be teaching an ALL LEVELS workshops at Wooden Roots on September 6th 2025.

18 months.

That’s how long the Wooden Roots Experience 2026 was in the making.

Not 18 months of sitting around thinking, “Wouldn’t it be nice to put on an event?”

No.

18 months of ideas, conversations, spreadsheets, budgets, grant applications, artist research, school programmes, community activity, meetings, emails, phone calls, sleepless nights, second-guessing ourselves and repeatedly asking the same question:

“Is this actually going to work?”

And then, eventually, we found out.

“Yes.”