A medium-size djembe carved from one of the traditional woods (including skin, rings, and rope) weighs around 9 kg (20 lb).

However, due to the lack of written records in West African countries, it is unclear whether the djembe predates or postdates the Mali Empire.

)[9] Prior to the 1950s and the decolonization of West Africa, due to the very limited travel of native Africans outside their own ethnic group, the djembe was known only in its original area.

The djembe first came to the attention of audiences outside West Africa with the efforts of Fodéba Keïta, who, in 1952, founded Les Ballets Africains.

[9] Touré's policies alienated Guinea from the West and he followed the Eastern Bloc model of using the country's culture and music for promotional means.

[10] He and Fodéba Keïta, who had become a close friend of Touré, saw the ballets as a way to secularize traditional customs and rites of different ethnic groups in Guinea.

The ballets combined rhythms and dances from widely different spiritual backgrounds in a single performance, which suited the aim of Touré's demystification program of "doing away with 'fetishist' ritual practices".

[16] After the death of Sekou Touré in 1984, funding for the ballets dried up and a number of djembefolas (who were never paid well by the ballets[17]) emigrated and made regular teaching and performance appearances in the west, including Mamady Keïta (Belgium, US), Famoudou Konaté (Germany), and Epizo Bangoura (France, US, and Australia).

The 1991 documentary Djembefola[12] by Laurent Chevallier depicts Mamady Keïta's return to the village of his birth after a 26-year absence.

[20][21] A 1998 follow-up documentary, Mögöbalu[22] (also by Chevallier), contains concert footage uniting four master drummers (Soungalo Coulibaly, Mamady Keita, Famoudou Konaté, and Doudou N'Diaye Rose) on stage.

Young djembefolas try to emulate the success of their predecessors and cater to the needs of the tourists, leading to change and commodification of the original djembe culture.

In the 1990s, djembes started being produced elsewhere, such as in Ghana, Nigeria, South Africa, and Indonesia, often using modern machinery and substitute species of wood, such as tweneboa (Cordia platythyrsa) or mahogany (Swietenia mahagoni or Toona sureni).

On a djembe tuned to solo pitch, skilled players can achieve sound pressure of more than 105 dB, about the same volume as a jackhammer.

The basic sounds are played "open", meaning that the hands rebound immediately after a strike, so the contact time with the skin is as short as possible.

Acoustically, a djembe is a Helmholtz resonator: the frequency of the bass is determined by the size and shape of the shell and independent of the amount of tension on the skin.

A rhythm is rarely played as a performance, but is participatory: musicians, dancers, singers, and onlookers are all part of the ensemble and frequently change roles while the music is in progress.

This makes the wood easier to carve and avoids radial splits that tend to develop in logs that are allowed to dry naturally.

Skins from dry and hot-climate areas and poorly fed goats are preferred for djembes because of their low fat content.

Skins from cold-climate goats with high-value nutrition have more than double the fat content; they tend to sound dull and lifeless in comparison.

[55] The pitch of these traditional djembes was much lower than it is today because the natural materials imposed a limit on the amount of tension that could be applied.

[7] The modern mounting system arose in the early seventies, when touring ballets came into contact with synthetic rope used by the military.

There is no firm consensus in the djembe community as to whether the benefits of this mounting are worth the extra weight and added complexity.

[57][58] To prevent damage to the rope from rust flakes, as well as for aesthetic reasons, the rings are often wrapped with strips of colored cloth.

[40] For a drum with a 31 cm (12.2 in) playing surface, this equates to an overall pull force of around 455 kg (1,000 lb), or 15,000 newton per meter (N/m) of tension.

In the 2000s, western demand and competition among carvers resulted in more and more elaborate carvings that can cover all of the foot and, in some cases, include the bowl of the drum.

[61] Traditionally, as today, in Africa an individual needs to spend many years accompanying his master in ceremonies and other festivities before becoming a real djembefola (djembe player).

Usually only the basic idea of the rhythm is transcribed but the real feeling that it carries can't be easily put down on paper.

For this reason, written material for advanced players is still scarce if not unavailable, while general and informational literature can be easily obtained.

Musical software can be useful for people who don't have a group to practice with, as individual tracks can be isolated or tempo changed to assist with playing along and learning/practising.

Notwithstanding its utility as a basic transcription tool, Percussion Studio cannot reproduce the intonation and microtiming of a skilled player and has limited value, therefore, for transcribing solo.