The talking drum is a West African drum whose pitch can be regulated to the extent that it is said the drum "talks". A talking drum player raises or lowers the pitch by squeezing or releasing the drum's strings with the upper arm. This can produce highly informative sounds to convey complicated messages. The ability to change the drum's pitch is analogous to the language tonality of some African languages.
Talking drums are one the oldest instruments used by West African griots and their history can be traced back to ancient Ghana Empire. The Hausa people (and by influence, the Yoruba people of southern Nigeria and Benin and the Dagomba of northern Ghana) have developed a highly sophisticated genre of griot music centering on the talking drum.
In the 20th century the talking drum became a part of popular music in West Africa.
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