The jembe is on the verge of achieving world status as a percussion instrument, rivaled in popularity perhaps only by the conga and steel pan. It first made an impact outside West Africa in the 1950s due to the world tours of Les Ballets Africains led by the Guinean Fodeba Keita.

Although there is no single story in general circulation as to the origin of the jembe, there does seem to be general agreement that it is associated with a class of hereditary professional blacksmiths of Maninka/Susu origin known as numu.

The wide dispersion of the jembe in West Africa may be due to numu migrations dating from the first millennium A.D. The numu families Camara, Doumbia, and Kante are integral parts of the Sunjata epic, the story of the founding of the Mali or Mande empire by Sunjata Keita in the early 13th century. According to widespread oral traditions, members of the Camara and Doumbia families were allies of Sunjata and helped to defeat the tyrant Susu king Sumanguru Kante.

Jembe repertories draw from many different sources. There are widespread core Maninka rhythms and dances, as well as more geographically limited dances. Many other rhythms are adaptations from other kinds of drums played by neighboring ethnic groups.

The development of national drumming styles and repertories (ballet style) is a recent phenomenon brought on by arbitrary European boundaries. Fundamental differences between village drumming and ballet drumming are rarely appreciated outside Africa.

Each traditional jembe rhythm and dance has a purpose, a time, and a place. Some rhythms honor groups of people; others are associated with specific occasions, such as rites of passage and cultivation of fields.

A village drumming event (which can also take place in cities) usually lasts hours, with the drummers and dancers concentrating on one or just a few dance rhythms. All of those present dance sometime during the event, usually approaching the drummers singly, or by twos or threes, playfully challenging them. In contrast to village drumming and dancing, regional and national ballets are highly choreographed with many dancers moving in unison.

The jembe has a long, widespread, and profound tradition in West Africa. There is much more to that tradition than the physical act of moving hands to recreate rhythms, for those rhythms and their associated dances have vital meanings in Africa.

From the clearing of fields, the celebrations of marriage and the passing into adulthood, to the secret rituals of the all-powerful Komo society, the jembe is there to guide. African jembe players teaching abroad are charged by their legacy with faithfully communicating their traditions to foreign students. It is up to us to seek them out, to learn about their culture, to study the sounds of the masters, and perhaps even to visit them in their towns and villages. Otherwise, their tradition may become so diluted that its very essence is lost.