Nana Kimati Dinizulu was an American virtuoso percussionist, who was widely acclaimed for his artistry with African percussion.
24 Facts About Kimati Dinizulu
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Kimati Dinizulu wrote works in the areas of jazz, folk, classical, popular, ballet, and musical theater.
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Kimati Dinizulu drew inspiration from the musical heritage of his family.
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For many generations, the Kimati Dinizulu clan had been active in music and performance.
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Kimati Dinizulu's father, Nana Yao Opare Kimati Dinizulu, an American, was an internationally acclaimed African drummer.
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Kimati Dinizulu studied various forms of traditional music from Brazil with the late Loramil Machado.
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Additionally, Kimati Dinizulu studied African and African-American hand drumming with his father, Baba Chief Bey, Baba Kwame Ishangi, and many others.
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Kimati Dinizulu worked with several domestic and international cultural organizations, including UNESCO.
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Kimati Dinizulu performed and lectured on endangered African-American instruments as a part of a UNESCO conference of scholars from around the world gathered at Tulane University.
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Furthermore, Kimati Dinizulu worked with the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, an organization for documenting, preserving, interpreting, and celebrating the culture and history of black people worldwide.
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Kimati Dinizulu has performed music and conducted traditional African rituals for the Schomburg Center.
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Kimati Dinizulu performed the drum rituals to help bring the Amistad into port in Harlem, New York.
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Besides this, Kimati Dinizulu was a participant in the African-American delegation at the First Annual Emancipation Day Celebration in Ghana, Africa in 1998 which was sponsored by the government of Ghana.
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Kimati Dinizulu had assembled a group of musicians from around the world, called the Kotoko Society, with whom he composed and performed regularly.
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Kimati Dinizulu made numerous worldwide performances over the past decades for many diverse groups of people.
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Some of Kimati Dinizulu's performances include Broadway's Death and the King's Horseman which is a play written and directed by the legendary Wole Soyinka.
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Kimati Dinizulu performed as a percussionist with Odetta, Carmen de Lavallade, and Antonio Fargas in this production.
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Kimati Dinizulu was commissioned by choreographer Judith Jamison for the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater to compose Riverside, which premiered in 1995 and became a smash hit.
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Kimati Dinizulu performed with artists such as Mavis Staples, Buddy Guy, Mos Def, and Angelique Kidjo in this concert.
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Apart from all this, Kimati Dinizulu performed during Nelson Mandela's 70th Birthday Tribute.
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Kimati Dinizulu was an active member of UNESCO's efforts to promote knowledge about the slave trade in the world and has given several lectures such as on "African-American Endangered Musical Instruments" and performances on UNESCO's behalf.
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Kimati Dinizulu performed with the Paul Winter Consort which combined elements from various African, Asian, and South American cultures with jazz.
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Kimati Dinizulu established the Kotoko Society to promote traditional African music and awareness of African culture throughout the world and to continually explore musical styles from Africa, the Caribbean, Brazil, and all places where African music has found a new home.
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Kimati Dinizulu made studio recordings and performed live with artists, namely Toni Morrison, Alvin Ailey, Donald McKayle, Gregory Hines, Sonny Rollins, Nina Simone, Harry Belafonte, Wynton Marsalis, Jackie McLean, Dizzy Gillespie, Paul Winter, Lonnie Liston Smith, Steve Turre, Danilo Perez, Stefon Harris, Clifton Anderson, and Vanessa Rubin.