A couple of days ago I stumbled upon a really cool little instrument. The kosika, as it’s known in America, is a small and simple, yet versatile rattle that originated in West Africa. It is traditionally made from two hollow gourds filled with seeds and connected by a string. Modern versions utilize other materials such as wood and plastic.
The kosika is known by many names—kashaka, banakula, kass kass, patica, and asalato to name a few—and can be found in many different West African nations. In Ghana they are used mostly as a children’s toy, in Mali kosika are played exclusively by women and girls, and in other parts of Western Africa they are used for various other purposes, both ritualistic and otherwise. In the West many people claim the kosika offers heath benefits to the player—improving ambidexterity, multitasking abilities, strengthening muscles from the hands to the chest, even aiding in brain hemispheric synchronization! Finally, many musicians around the world use the kosika for a unique form of percussive expression.
Interestingly, the instrument seems to really have taken off in Japan. I’m not quite sure why this is or how it happened, but as you can see in the videos down below, a lot of Japanese people are playing them—and are quite good!
The skilled player can create complex polyrhythms through a combination of shaking, swinging, and hitting the two balls of the kosika together. As a drummer I was blown away at the rhythmic complexity that the players were able to get out of them! I showed the below videos to my dad and he was speechless. Needless to say, we are waiting for our very own in the mail courtesy of www.kosika.com. I am really excited to give them a try—I will post on them again to let you know my progress!
