Let’s square up and dance the Kwadril!….

In Jamaica we explore Kumina, an early Afro-Caribbean religious folk music that paid, and still continues to pay, homage to “the spirits” through communal drumming, chanting and dance.

How lucky are we that we get to go the Bahamas to celebrate Junkanoo?

We can’t spend a musical week in Puerto Rico without ea nod to salsa, one of Puerto Rico’s most danceable musical exports, and one of its formative stars, Rafael Cortijo....

Johnny Ventura, born as Juan de Dios, is a preeminent Dominican singer and band leader who Dominicans know for bringing American R&B and rock to merengue....

Haiti is a small country in the Caribbean with a proud rebellious streak and a terribly troubled past....

Cuban conga music developed from rhythmic street parade performances by groups of musicians called comparsas which play music and dance in Cuban streets during festivals like Carnival....

Join us, and this video, to dive in the the African heritage of Caribbean drumming....

As we end our “Everything is a Drum” season, let’s go in for one more percussion style, this one from Colombia....

The Sugarhill Gang’s “Rapper’s Delgitht” is the oldest of Old School rap/hip-hop.....

Flamenco is an intensely artistic, and infinitely rhythmic, form of music from Southern Spain….

When All Around This World says "Everything is a Drum," we mean EVERYTHING. In Vanuatu, in the Pacific Islands, there is a tradition of women wading into the water and using the water -- yes, the water! -- as a drum.

Maqsum, which we meet this week in our “Everything is a Drum” season of music class, is one of the foundational Arabic rhythms….

Taiko drumming is theatrical on purpose. Modern taiko performances are big and bold, with drummers performing intricately planned routines that are exciting because of confident choreography…..

Eastern European folk music, especially music from countries like Bulgaria and Romania, is known for its unique "additive" rhythms, rhythms that are composed of small groups of beats added to one another to make an exciting phrase. …

Afro-Cuban percussionist and producer of the All Around This World: Latin America CD, Arturo Stable, is an encyclopedia of Caribbean rhythms. In “Rhythms of Latin America” Arturo gets us drumming.

In Indian classical music the tabla player is usually responsible for holding down the Taal -- essentially the rhythm in an Indian Classical composition, though in truth the concept is more complex -- while a vocalist sings or other instrumentalist solos…though the tabla player almost always gets a chance to shine with improvisation in the course of a piece.

Babatunde Olatunji and his Drums of Passion brought African rhythmic drumming to an international audience for decades, traveling the world as ambassadors for Olatunji’s native Nigeria, and as an inspiration to a generation of would-be percussionists.

The Ewe people of West Africa — Ghana, Togo, Benin and more — are revered for their traditional drumming and music, much of which features multiple rhythms that playfully cross one another throughout expansive and energetic drumming sessions.

Olodum is an Afro-Brazilian samba drumming “bloco” that not only makes marvelous “samba-reggae” music during Salvador’s Carnival but also shines as a social group that fights for the rights of marginalized people in Bahia and beyond.