Kusika and the Zambezi Marimba Band

Kusika takes its name from the Shona people of Zimbabwe. Kusika means “to create.” Kusika is an ensemble dedicated to performing music, dance, and storytelling from Africa and the African Diaspora. The repertoire includes dance from classical, traditional, and contemporary social forms. Along with traditional dance and music, we also share in the art of storytelling, a medium through which history, culture, and traditions have been passed from generation to generation in African cultures.

 
The Zambezi Marimba Band plays marimba music from Zimbabwe and Ghana. Marimba comes from the Bantu languages of Central Africa where it means “the wood that sings.” African slaves recreated marimba once they arrived in the Americas beginning in the 1600’s. The Zambezi Marimba Band is the only group playing Zimbabwean marimbas on the East Coast. In 1998 the band acquired a set of Ghanaian marimbas, which are called gyil in the Dagara language of northern Ghana. The Zambezi Marimba Band has also developed a repertoire of traditional Mbira (finger xylophone) music.