Black Musics, Technology, and Modernity: Exhibit A, the Drum Kit

Abstract

This article examines the history of the trap (drum) kit. Debuting in the 1890s, the “kit” developed to meet the creative needs of Afrological musical styles: evolving mechanically, technically, and conceptually into a complex multi-instrument requiring four-limb coordinated independence to perform rhythmically interlocking sonic structures across four (or more) percussion instruments. Ubiquitous, often thought timeless, the kit is modern technology, the core of popular musics, articulating our sonic environment, influencing aural perception, identity, and consciousness. As embodied musical technology and praxis, kit drumming is a “technology of self” indicative of a need to re-locate African-American musico-cultural history within the technologies and philosophies that distinguish modern life.