West African Percussionist
Amy Lusk has been performing West African percussion for over 15 years. Since 2000, she has been a student of Famoudou Konaté, world-renowned Master of Malinké music from Guinea, West Africa. Her love of the melodic, intricate rhythms of the Malinké people led her to travel to Guinea to study with Famoudou at his home in the capital city of Conakry. While in Guinea, Amy traveled with Famoudou to his home village of Sangbaralla, in the heart of the country, where the music is a part of daily life and few outsiders have ever visited. (Bio continued below).
Together with Famoudou and the Elders of Sangbarala Village, Helen and Amy created the Benkadi Project, a person-to-person effort to expand educational opportunities and health services for children and families in Sangbaralla. Translated, Benkadi means “To Live Together is Very Good.” The Benkadi Project builds cross-cultural connections and provides an opportunity to thank the Malinke people for sharing their rich musical and cultural tradition with people around the world.
Amy began her study of hand-drumming as a “stress release” from graduate school, but she soon found that the drum had become much more than a hobby. She has also studied with Mamady Keita, Nansady Keita, Sayon Camara, Kwasi Adounum, Yakob Kouyaté, Manu Walton and other percussionists in the US and abroad.
Amy has been an avid musician all her life. Since discovering her passion for West African percussion, she has created successful performance groups that have integrated hand drumming into efforts to create broader social and cultural change. In the 1990s, she was an early member of the Women’s Action Coalition (WAC) Drum Core in Chicago, which combined drumming and feminist activism. Amy co-founded the Lunacy performance ensemble, which blended drumming, poetry and song to celebrate lesbian visibility, women’s strength and the universal vitality of the human spirit. Lunacy performed in arts festivals across in the Midwest, including the Bailiwick Arts Festival, Art Attack, Around the Coyote, and Nights of the Blue Rider.
Amy has taught drumming to people of diverse ages and backgrounds in both individual and group settings for over ten years. She co-founded and led the World Peace Rhythm Project, a women’s drumming ensemble at the Soka Gakkai International (SGI), a lay Buddhist association that works for peace through humanistic culture and education. Under her leadership, the World Peace Rhythm Project performed traditional West African music at interfaith and community activities in the Midwest and at the “Drum, Dance and Pray for Peace Festival” in Washington DC, while inspiring the formation of similar ensembles across the country.
Today, Amy focuses on further developing her knowledge, skill and repertoire in Malinké rhythms and songs, performing with Diamana Diya, and supporting Famoudou Konaté in his efforts to preserve and share the music and artistic traditions of his people.