Young Brunette Girl With Djembe Drums Reveals On The Balcony Terrace

The traditional barriers against women djembe and dunun players have come down in recent years.
- In 1998, Mamoudou Conde, director of the ballets Les Percussions de Guinée, Les Ballets Africains, and Ballet Djoliba, began to explore the idea of including women djembe and dunun players in ballet performances, against considerable initial resistance from male performers. Despite this, he included two female djembe players in the 2000 American tour of Les Percussions de Guinée. Based on positive feedback from that tour, Conde decided to form an all-female ballet group called Amazones: The Women Master Drummers of Guinea (renamed Nimbaya! in 2010). The group first toured the US in 2004 and continues to perform, with tour dates scheduled out to 2014.
- More recently, Salimata Diabaté from Burkina Faso has performed as lead djembe player with her group Afro Faso Jeunesse, proving that female djembefolas can match their male counterparts in every respect.
- In the West, Monette Marino-Keita from San Diego won the 1st National "Hand Drum-Off" Competition in 2001, performed internationally with the percussion ensemble Sewa Kan, and produced her first album Coup d'Eclat in 2010.