Drums have been used since ancient times in many different cultures for various purposes.
Those purposes varied from religious rituals and ceremonies to sporting events, as a way to communicate or even as therapy. Studies have shown that drumming can have positive effects on your health and you access your entire brain when you drum. More importantly, listening to drum sounds almost has the same effect as drumming itself.
So what happens when you hear a lot of drums at once?
In case you were curious, here’s a video with 150 Colombian drummers to answer that question for you.
The group in question is AAINJAA, and it represents a unique project out of South America.
Music groups usually consist of five to roughly ten members at most, right?
Not AAINJAA—they have more than 150 drummers! The band is from Bogotá, Colombia and they make a real festival on the streets from time to time. When in action, AAINJAA members use different drums of all shapes and sizes, with outfits as interesting as the music they play. Dressed in black with black and red accessories, these drummers remind us of warriors of music who fight for positive vibes to prevail. That is not far from the truth, because drummers of AAINJAA describe themselves as samba-reggae warriors.
AAINJAA has been around since 2013, when it was founded by Homero Cortés.
Cortés says that the name of the band has its meaning in the indigenous Wuayuunaiki language. It can be roughly translated as “to do” or “to create.” As their performance here shows, they certainly know how to set the stage for a great party!
Before long, the streets of Bogotá were shaking to the beat of AAINJAA’s drums.
The video begins with a loud shout of the band’s name from all the band members.
Though it’s loud enough on the video, imagine how loud it must’ve been in person! That much energy makes you want to join in right away! What follows is a countdown from 30 to 1—and after that, they finally start drumming! Their sound is effective, and their samba rhythm is perfect to shake off all the bad energy.
First to open the show is a Brazilian drum, followed by snare drums, bass surdos, tambours, and bells.
The people around them are into this fantastic performance—they participate in the show, dance, sing and try to capture the atmosphere with their phones.
Before long, music and dance have brought the whole crowd together!
The AAINJAA drummers are driven by the music and seem to completely enjoy the atmosphere.
In the crowd, there isn’t a single face without a smile on it! AAINJAA’s samba-reggae rhythms are better known as batucada, and originate from the streets of Brazil. If all this is very familiar to you, that’s because Michael Jackson first introduced us to batucada when he featured Brazilian drummers in his 1995 “They Don’t Care About Us” video.
This awesome drum performance got more than 75 million views on YouTube!
One important difference between Brazilian and Colombian drumming bands is that drumming groups in Brazil are mostly male drummers. On the other side, AAINJAA from Bogotá is gender-mixed. Above all, AAINJAA members said that love and discipline are the two pillars of their “social-cultural movement,” and after seeing this, it’s easy to support their mission! We may just have to consider becoming drum warriors ourselves…
Be sure to watch their entire performance in the link below:
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