Originating from the 18th century, talking drum players used tones to disseminate messages, such as news of ceremonies and commands, over 4-5 mile distances.

The Yoruba people of south western Nigeria and Benin and the Dagomba of northern Ghana have both developed a highly sophisticated genre of griot music centering on the talking drum.

[9] This construction is limited to within the contemporary borders of West Africa, with exceptions to this rule being northern Cameroon and western Chad; areas which have shared populations belonging to groups predominant in their bordering West African countries, such as the Kanuri, Djerma, Fulani and Hausa.

[12] When the rooster crows, the Xaat will rest and sleep until the moment of circumcision, if he has been judged to be able to dance to the Woong, surrounded by four tam-tam.

The Perngel, the Lamb, the Qiin and the Tama.From a historical perspective, the tama (just like the Serer junjung), was beaten by the griots of Senegambian kings on special occasions, such as during wars (a call for arms), when the kings wanted to address their subjects, and on special circumstances in Serer country – a call for martyrdom, such as the mayhem at Tahompa (a 19th-century surprise attack)[13][14] and the Battle of Naoudourou,[13] where the defeated Serers (by the Muslim-marabouts of Senegambia), committed suicide rather than be conquered by the Muslim forces or forced to submit to Islam.

The drum can thus capture the pitch, volume, and rhythm of human speech, though not the qualities of vowels or consonants.

In the 19th century Roger T. Clarke, a missionary, realised that "the signals represent the tones of the syllables of conventional phrases of a traditional and highly poetic character.

The same plan of three principal tones and their inflections also applies to how the drum talks in Yoruba music and culture.

The process may take eight times longer than communicating a normal sentence but was effective for telling neighboring villages of possible attacks or ceremonies.

Drum languages could also be used for specifically literary forms, for proverbs, panegyrics, historical poems, dirges, and in some cultures practically any kind of poetry.

The predominant style of playing in areas further west such as Senegal, Gambia, western Mali and Guinea is characterized by rapid rolls and short bursts of sound between the stick holding hand and accompanying free hand, and correlates with the various pitch accent and non-tonal languages heard in this area.

From eastern Mali, Burkina Faso and Ghana, towards Niger, western-Chad and Nigeria, (with the exceptions of areas with Fulani and Mande-speaking majorities) the playing style of the talking drum is centered on producing long and sustained notes by hitting the drum head with the stick-holding hand and the accompanying free hand used to dampen and change tones immediately after being hit.

[29] Tom Waits used the talking drum on his song "Trouble's Braids", a track from the album Swordfishtrombones.

Erykah Badu used the talking drum on her song "My People", from the album New Amerykah Part One (4th World War).

Sikiru Adepoju is a master of the talking drum from Nigeria who has collaborated with artists from the Grateful Dead to Stevie Wonder and Carlos Santana.

David Byrne's American Utopia Broadway musical and HBO concert film features a tama player on multiple songs during the show.

[3] They can also be heard in the 1959 movie The Nun's Story, starring Audrey Hepburn, when she arrives in what was at that time the Belgian Congo.

The score, composed by Ludwig Göransson, uses talking drums at the core of a leitmotif associated with the film's protagonist, T'Challa (played by Chadwick Boseman).